Mataram (city)
Mataram is a capital city of the Indonesian province of West Nusa Tenggara. The city is surrounded on all the landward sides by West Lombok Regency and lies on the western side of the island of Lombok, Indonesia. It is also the largest city of the province, and had a population of 402,843 at the 2010 Census and 429,651 at the 2020 Census; the official estimate as at mid 2023 was 441,147.
The city is an economic, cultural, and education center of the province. It hosts all public universities in the province, the main airport, and also main government offices. Greater Mataram Area or sometimes also called Gumi Rinjani Metropolitan Area is a metropolitan area surrounding the city with a total population of around 3 million people on 2015, making it one of the largest in the Lesser Sunda Islands along with the Denpasar metropolitan area in Bali.
History
There was a small city called Selaparang in East Lombok, which was a centre of Sasak power in Lombok from the 16th to the 17th century AD. West Lombok was under the control of Balinese rajas, based on their states of Mataram and Cakranegara, until the island was invaded and occupied by the Dutch in 1894.Geography
The modern city is an urban sprawl in the middle of West Lombok, composed of three contiguous towns which were formerly separate but now share a single administration. The old port town of Ampenan in the west merges into the administrative centre of Mataram and this in turn merges into the commercial town of Cakranegara. Further east still lies the district of Sweta, the location of Lombok's biggest market as well as Lombok's bus terminal. The towns are linked by a wide, 8km-long one-way street which begins as Jalan Langko in Apenan, becomes Jalan Pejanggik in Mataram and finishes as Jalan Selaparang in Cakranegara; it then continues east as the principal cross-island highway to Labuhan Lombok and then Kayangan, site of the Lombok-Sumbawa ferry.Governance
Administrative division
The city consists of six districts, tabulated below with their areas and their populations at the 2010 Census and the 2020 Census, together with the official estimates as at mid 2023. The table also includes the number of administrative villages in each district, and its postal codes.| Kode Wilayah | Name of District | Area in km2 | Pop'n Census 2010 | Pop'n Census 2020 | Pop'n Estimate mid 2023 | No. of villages | Post codes |
| 52.71.01 | Ampenan | 9.46 | 78,779 | 88,022 | 91,311 | 10 | 83118 |
| 52.71.04 | Sekarbela | 10.32 | 53,112 | 58,786 | 60,816 | 5 | 83115 & 83116 |
| 52.71.02 | Mataram | 10.76 | 73,107 | 77,465 | 79,132 | 9 | 83127 |
| 52.71.05 | Selaparang | 10.77 | 72,665 | 68,657 | 68,965 | 9 | 83126 |
| 52.71.03 | Cakranegara | 9.67 | 64,087 | 67,826 | 69,261 | 10 | 83238 - 63239 |
| 52.71.06 | Sandubaya | 10.32 | 61,093 | 68,895 | 71,662 | 7 | 83232 - 63237 |
| Totals | 61.30 | 402,843 | 429,651 | 441,147 | 50 |
Notes: Except the kampungs of Ampenan Tengah, Pejeruk, Ampenan Selatan and Ampenan Utara. Except the kampung of Pagutan.
Demographics
Ethnicity
The Sasak people are the indigenous people of Lombok and form the majority of Mataram's residents. Mataram is also home to people of Balinese, Javanese, Buginese, Bimanese, Tionghoa-Peranakan people of mixed Indonesian and Chinese descent and a small number of Arab Indonesian people, mainly of Yemeni descent who arrived when the town was known as "Ampenan". Despite being urban dwellers, the Sasak people of Mataram still identify strongly with their origins and the Sasak culture.There is also an ethnic Malay settlement in the Ampenan district, known as Kampung Melayu, where the residents are ethnic Malays and speak Malay language. The people of Mataram had known the Malay language since the mid-19th century, or also before that. As mentioned by Wallace in his book The Malay Archipelago, the people of Lombok dialogued with Fernandes about divinity. Also by Charles Kordhoff, a US sailor, who mentioned the use of Malay in Lombok.