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Balikpapan is a port city of East Kalimantan in Indonesia, on the east coast of Borneo where Balikpapan Bay opens to the Makassar Strait, and it is famous as the Oil City, with its refinery, its city beaches and the rainforest of Sungai Wain at its edge. About 747,000 people lived there in mid 2024, making it the second largest city of the province.
Before the oil boom it was a small Bugis fishing village. Oil was first drilled on 10 February 1897, a date the city keeps as its birthday, and the Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij made it its headquarters in 1907. Japanese forces held the oil town during the Second World War, and on 1 July 1945 the Australian 7th Division landed nearby in the last stage of the Borneo campaign.
Today Balikpapan is a business hub with the largest economy in Kalimantan, and a near neighbour of Nusantara, the new national capital. Visitors come for Kemala, Manggar and Lamaru beaches, the botanic garden and the great Madinatul Iman mosque, and take day trips outside the city to the canopy bridge of Bukit Bangkirai and the orangutans of Samboja Lestari.
Kemala Beach in Balikpapan is a small white-sand beach in the heart of the city, on Jalan Jenderal Sudirman in South Balikpapan, looking out over the Makassar Strait. It is laid out with a Balinese feel, and its beachside eating places are lit by candles at night for dinner by the sea.
Manggar Beach, also called Pantai Segara Sari, lies about 22 kilometres from central Balikpapan in East Balikpapan, on the Makassar Strait. It is a recreation beach with shelters, an information post, street food stalls, and banana boat and speedboat rides on the water.
Lamaru Beach in Balikpapan lies about 5 kilometres east of Manggar Beach on Jalan Mulawarman in East Balikpapan, facing the Makassar Strait. It is calmer than the beaches nearer the city, and rows of shady casuarina trees along the sand make it a good place to relax by the sea.
Balikpapan is a coastal city with many beaches on the Makassar Strait, among them Manggar, Segara, Monument and Kemala, as well as Brigade Mobile Beach near the police academy. Of them all, Melawai Beach is the one most popular with the people who live in the city.
Sungai Wain Protected Forest, or Hutan Lindung Sungai Wain, is a rainforest reserve of about 10,000 hectares at the northern edge of Balikpapan. Guarded by the Sultan of Kutai from 1934 and a water source since 1947, it shelters sun bears, orangutans and proboscis monkeys along the Wain River.
Kebun Raya Balikpapan, the Balikpapan Botanic Garden, lies inside the Sungai Wain forest at kilometre 15 in Karang Joang, about 20 kilometres from the city. Designated in 2009, it covers about 309 hectares and grows protected rainforest trees such as ironwood, bangkirai and meranti.
Bukit Bangkirai is a rainforest reserve outside the city in Kutai Kartanegara, about 58 kilometres from Balikpapan, a day trip of 1.5 to 2 hours by road. Its canopy bridge, built in 1998 as the first in Indonesia, runs 64 metres between five bangkirai trees 30 metres above the ground.
Samboja Lestari, a day trip about 38 kilometres outside Balikpapan, is an orangutan rescue centre run by the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation. Since 2001 it has been restoring rainforest on about 1,800 hectares of deforested grassland, and it also keeps a sun bear sanctuary and an eco-lodge.
Balikpapan Bay opens to the Makassar Strait on the west side of Balikpapan, with Pertamina's largest oil refinery on its eastern shore. Ferries cross from Semayang and Kariangau ports to Penajam, and at Kariangau an 800-metre ironwood boardwalk runs through the mangroves by the bay.
Teritip Crocodile Farm is a crocodile breeding farm in Teritip, a coastal village of East Balikpapan near Lamaru Beach. Visitors come to see the crocodiles bred in its pools, and the village around it is also known for well-kept mangroves, seaweed farming and fruit such as mini papaya.
Masjid Madinatul Iman is the great mosque of the Islamic Center of Balikpapan, built from 2014 and opened in 2017 in a style modelled on the Prophet's Mosque in Medina. Its site covers about 15 hectares with four minarets and six great umbrellas, and it holds about 10,000 worshippers.
The Japanese Bunker Balikpapan is one of the concrete bunkers that Japanese troops built in Balikpapan during the Second World War to defend the oil town and shelter from Allied attacks. Several still stand around the city, recalling the Australian landings of July 1945 in the Pacific War.
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Log in to add photosPhoto: consigliere ivan from Bontang, Indonesia, Wikimedia Commons, CC0
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