Yogyakarta

Yogyakarta is an inland city in the south center of the island of Jawa (Java), at the foot of Mount Merapi, and in the basin of the Opak River system. The metropolitan area, sometimes called Kartamantul, has a population of 1.674 to 2.393 million.¹ The city itself has a population of 389 thousand.²

The area became important in the late 8th century when the Medang (or Mataram) Kingdom flourished there until the eleventh century. The region's standout amongst the many classical era temples is Prambanan, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and tourist attraction.³ This Shaivist Temple includes a 47 meter structure surrounded by three shorter ones.⁴ Tourists also enjoy the Ullen Sentalu Museum, which displays classical era royal artifacts, and is located uphill from the city proper.³

The city is served by one of the nation's busiest airports: Adisucipto International in the Slemen Regency.⁵

Historical maps

External references

Prambanan Temple complex, Yogyakarta metropolitan area, Jawa island, Indonesia

Footnotes

1. The lower figure is the 2012 figure from world-gazetteer.com, accessed February 6, 2013. The higher figure is from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_in_Indonesia, citing the 2010 census and accessed February 14, 2017. The difference can reasonably be assumed to be caused by what settled areas are included.
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Indonesia, accessed February 14, 2017.
3. Top ten from https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g294228-Activities-Java.html, accessed February 15, 2017.
4. UNESCO, World Heritage Sites (Firefly Books, 2010).
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_busiest_airports_in_Indonesia, accessed February 15, 2017; my criterion for inclusion was 1M passengers in 2015.
6. The capital of the kingdom is not known until later than 800. Various temples were built, and one later served as a palace, but not when first built.
7. Tertius Chandler, Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth, 2nd ed. (The Edwin Mellen Press, 1987), "Tables of the World's Largest Cities." His estimate for what he calls 'Prambanan' comes from the manpower required for the state to construct the Borobudur Temple (pg. 412), and he cites J. Hildreth, ed., 'Bulletin,' fall 1973, San Francisco (Standard Oil of California) for that data. But G. Coèdes, in Histoire ancienne des états hindouisés d'Extrême-Orient (Editions E. de Boccard, 1964), translated by Sue Brown Cowing as Indianized States of Southeast Asia (East-West Center Press, 1968), pg. 90, says 'the paleography of the short contemporary inscriptions on [Borobudur's] foundation prevents us from considering [Borobudur] as dating from before the middle of the ninth century.' That's a half century later than 800. There is then cause for skepticism about the figure of 60,000 for that date. If you accept that figure then its approximate continuance in 900 would be reasonable. For 900, Chandler puts 'Prambanan' as smaller than Nanjing, which was smaller than Mansura, which he estimated at 65,000. He put the Javanese city as larger than 'Yangchow,' which he put at 60,000. He reduced its size for 1000 (when it was no longer the national capital), putting it as smaller than Pagan, which was smaller than Beijing, which he thought had 50,000. He put it as larger than Varanasi, which he thought to be larger than Київ (Kyyiv), which he thought had 45,000. His figures put the Javanese city as the island's largest for these three centuries.
8. The term Mataram is definitely local at later times, but is not certainly local in 800. The term Medang is thought by some to refer to this central Javanese kingdom, but others say it refers to a kingdom in eastern Java. See some discussion in the 'Etymology' section of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medang_Kingdom, accessedd October 26, 2017. Compare it to the 'Mataram Kingdom (8th - 10th century CE)' section of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogyakarta, accessed the same day.
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medang_Kingdom, accessed October 26, 2017, says it was the name of the capital during the reign of Balitung (circa 899 to 911 CE). Its location is presumed to be within today's Yogyakarta Region.
10. The capital had moved to Wwatan, presumed to be near today's Madiun, in East Jawa Province according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medang_Kingdom, accessed October 26, 2017.