The 2010 census shows that Indonesia’s total population increased from 203.5 million to 237.6 million in the last 10 years, and the urban population grew from 85.2 million to 118.3 million during the same period.
Likewise, the proportion of the urban population, that is, level of urbanization, increased significantly from 41.9 percent to 49.7 percent over the period.
In other words, about half of Indonesia’s population is urban. About 80.5 million out of this urban population, or 68 percent, live in Java, and 37.8 million live on other islands.
It can be said that in most parts of the country urbanization and urban development have been greatly fueled by foreign and domestic investment, especially in large cities like Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung and Medan.
Economic activities have been increasingly concentrated in those cities, most notably the manufactu...