Surabaya

About Surabaya

Surabaya, Indonesia's second-largest city and the capital of East Java, calls itself the City of Heroes. On 10 November 1945 its people fought British-led forces in one of the fiercest battles of the struggle for independence, and the date is still marked across the country as Heroes' Day. The city's emblem pairs a shark and a crocodile, a nod to the legend behind its name.

For centuries Surabaya was a port linking Java with the spice islands, and the old quarters still show it: Dutch warehouses near the Red Bridge, a Chinatown, and an Arab quarter clustered around the Sunan Ampel Mosque. Modern Surabaya is a busy, green city of malls, parks and wide avenues, famous for food such as rawon, a black beef soup, and lontong balap.

Juanda International Airport and trains from Jakarta and Yogyakarta connect the city. The Suramadu Bridge leads across the strait to Madura, and the volcanic landscape of Mount Bromo is a popular trip from here, usually with a pre-dawn start.