Current Time in Palangkaraya, Indonesia

Palangkaraya is the capital of the Indonesian province of Central Kalimantan, set on the banks of the Kahayan River in the interior of Borneo. The city lies in a landscape of peat swamp forest, black water rivers and low sandy ridges, roughly a hundred and fifty kilometres inland from the Java Sea. Its equatorial climate is hot and humid throughout the year, with heavy rainfall for much of the calendar and a shorter dry season when smoke from peatland fires can affect the region.

About three hundred thousand people live here, but the municipality covers an extraordinary area of some two and a half thousand square kilometres, most of it forest and swamp, which makes Palangkaraya one of the largest cities in the world by administrative territory. Much of the population is concentrated in a compact centre laid out on a generous grid.

The city is unusual in Indonesia for being deliberately created rather than inherited from the colonial past. President Sukarno inaugurated it in 1957 on the site of the village of Pahandut, intending it to be a modern showpiece of the young republic in the heart of Borneo, and he even proposed it at one stage as a future national capital. The wide avenues, the roundabouts and the monument marking the founding all date from that period, and the idea of Palangkaraya as a capital has been revived in national debate more than once.

The surrounding region is the homeland of the Dayak peoples, above all the Ngaju, and their culture is very much alive in the city. The Balanga Museum displays carvings, textiles, ceremonial objects and sandung burial containers, and traditional Kaharingan beliefs continue alongside Islam and Christianity. Longhouse architecture, hornbill motifs and the tiwah secondary funeral ceremony are among the distinctive features of local life.

Nature is the main attraction for visitors. Boat trips on the Kahayan and Rungan rivers pass villages, floating houses and forest, and the Nyaru Menteng centre near the city is one of the most important orangutan rescue and rehabilitation projects in the world, caring for animals displaced by logging and fire. Sebangau National Park protects a vast tract of peat swamp forest with wild orangutans, gibbons and abundant birdlife, and the surrounding peatlands have become a focus of international research into carbon storage and forest restoration.

The Kahayan Bridge, with its distinctive arched span, is the city's best known landmark and a favourite place to watch the sunset. Tjilik Riwut Airport connects Palangkaraya to Jakarta, Surabaya and other Indonesian cities, while roads run to Banjarmasin and Sampit and rivers still serve as important routes into the interior.

The University of Palangka Raya, founded in the 1960s, is the leading academic institution and specialises in forestry, agriculture and tropical peatland studies.

Palangkaraya is significant as the gateway to the forests and rivers of Central Kalimantan and as a young city that has come to symbolise Indonesia's ambitions for its largest island.