Recently, the Egyptian government announced the relocation of the capital from Cairo to a desert area about 45 kilometers east, Cairo has been the capital of Egypt for a thousand years and is the largest city in Egypt and the entire Arab world. Because of this, in the face of growing population and environmental problems, Egypt began to relocate its capital.
Coincidentally, on the 18th of this month, the Indonesian Parliament approved the Draft National Capital Law, which stipulates that in the future, the Indonesian capital will be moved from the current Jakarta to East Kalimantan Province, and the new capital will be named "Nushandara" (also translated as "Nusantara"), which means "archipelago" in Indonesian, so why should Indonesia move its capital?
Indonesia Profile: The South China Sea is shattered, a veritable country of thousands of islands
Indonesia, fully known as the Republic of Indonesia, is the largest country in Southeast Asia, with a total area of about 1.91 million square kilometers. The land borders Malaysia, Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea, and is across the sea from Singapore, the Philippines, Australia and other countries; the country consists of more than 17,500 islands, of which Kalimantan, Sumatra, Irian and Java are large and densely populated islands.
Indonesia has many islands
Indonesia's total population of 260 million, second only to China, India and the United States, and because of its unique geographical location at the crossroads of world trade, a large number of Arab merchants brought Islam to Indonesia, and now about 87% of Indonesia's population believes in Islam, which is the largest Muslim population in the world.
The capital of Indonesia is Jakarta, located on the fifth largest island in the country, Java Island, with a population of about 10.3 million; Jakarta is not only the largest city in Indonesia, but also the largest city in Southeast Asia, and its greater Jakarta metropolitan area has a population of nearly 30 million, which is the financial and political center of the country, so why should the Indonesian government move the capital? In my opinion, it is mainly due to the following three considerations.
Promote balanced economic development
Indonesia's total population of 260 million, but the distribution is very uneven, the capital Jakarta is located in Java Island population of up to 150 million, this area of only 130,000 square kilometers of small islands actually accounted for half of Indonesia's population, population density per square meter of more than 1,000 people, is the world's highest population density of islands. The opposite is true of kalimantan, the destination of this relocation, which Indonesia occupies about 540,000 square kilometers and has a population of only 14 million, only one-tenth of Java.
Population distribution in Indonesia
Java is not only a large island of population, but also an economic engine of Indonesia. Oil, coal, iron, gold, silver, sulfur and other reserves are abundant, rice, corn, tea, rubber, sugar, coffee and other production also accounted for 60%-90% of the national output, the industry covers oil refining, shipbuilding, machinery, metallurgy, rubber, textile, chemical, paper and so on. The traffic is developed, with 60%-70% of the country's road and railway mileage. It can be said that Indonesia's economy is heavily dependent on the island of Java, so this move can be said to be for the balanced development of the whole country.
Alleviates Jakarta's severe metropolitan disease
As mentioned earlier, Java is the engine of Indonesia's economy, and Jakarta is also the economic engine of Java. Jakarta has the country's largest financial, industrial and commercial summit institutions, hundreds of domestic and foreign companies and corporate offices, a number of large comprehensive markets and professional shopping malls, and is the largest industrial center in the country. The main industries are shipbuilding, textiles, automobiles, assembly, steamships, chemicals, fertilizers, food processing, printing, etc. On the island of Java, there are 6 roads and railways meeting here, and it is also the transportation hub of the whole island.
The outer port of Tanjung Bulu is the largest port in the country, the throughput is located in the forefront of Southeast Asia, and the Construction of Zhenkaran Airport is an important transit point for international sea and air routes between Europe and Oceania. There are 40 hospitals and more than 100 universities, of which the University of Indonesia is the highest institution in the country. There are many scientific research institutions, stadiums, aquariums, zoos, performance centers, seaside tourist areas, and the largest central museum in southeast Asia. Jakarta has long been the country's financial and industrial hub, with major industrial sectors such as shipbuilding, textiles, automotive assembly, building materials, chemicals and food processing. Indonesia is the largest oil producer in Southeast Asia, most of its products are exported through outer ports, and the mainland is also a major importer of Indonesian oil.
However, due to the high intensity of development and geographical factors, the population of Jakarta and its surrounding areas in indonesia is about 30 million, and the economic loss caused by traffic congestion reaches 7 billion US dollars per year. Jakarta is low-lying and vulnerable to flooding. Moreover, the water demand of a large number of people in the Tokyo metropolitan area has led to excessive groundwater extraction, and ground subsidence has increased year by year. According to a study by Indonesia's Bandung Institute of Technology, more than 25% of Jakarta could be submerged in less than 10 years.
Indonesia's ports are prosperous in transportation
These problems are related both to the lack of long-term planning in cities and to the explosive population growth. Jakarta is one of the most densely populated cities in the world, in 1970, Jakarta's population of 4.5 million, by 2010 has reached 9.5 million, doubled, and now has reached about 12 million people, and a large number of residents live in the surrounding towns of Jakarta, the capital circle population of up to 30 million, in Asia is second only to Tokyo's super metropolitan area. According to a report published by British market research firm Euromonitor International in October last year, according to the current population development, the greater Jakarta region will exceed 35.6 million people in 2030, surpassing Tokyo to become the world's most populous city. In order to alleviate Jakarta's growing urban disease, it is also necessary to relocate the capital.
Dodge the threat of neighboring volcanoes
Indonesia is a country prone to natural disasters, and the whole country is located in the world's volcanic belt. There are more than 500 volcanoes in the country, the world's largest number of volcanoes, Japan is relatively safe; of which there are about 150 active volcanoes, which is not the worst, because the volcanic distribution is also concentrated around densely populated islands such as Java.
In the period of agricultural society, the volcanic ash produced after the volcanic eruption cooled to form a huge thick volcanic ash deposition for a long time, which provided fertile soil for the growth of local characteristic agriculture, especially tropical fruits and tropical cash crops; it greatly promoted the increase in the yield of these crops, so it caused people to gather on the volcano to live, which can also be said to be a blessing and a curse. But in today's industrial age, as the agricultural population decreases, these volcanoes are gradually becoming beasts that threaten people's safety. The island of Java is the most volcanically densely populated region in the country, with a total of 112 volcanoes, of which 35 are active volcanoes, and the two most famous volcanic eruptions in history were in the area around the island of Java.
On March 27, 1883, the catahata volcano in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra erupted, and the eruption and the resulting tsunami destroyed hundreds of villages and cities, killing 36,417 people, and the huge sound of the eruption could be felt in the island nation of Mauritius in East Africa. Two-thirds of the original Krakatoa volcano disappeared in the eruption, and the entire earth cooled by an average of 0.6 degrees Celsius. New volcanic activity has created a growing volcanic island since 1927.
Indonesia is located on the plate volcanic seismic belt
From April 5 to July 15, 1815, Mount Tambora erupted, the most violent eruption in human history, and the sound of the eruption reached 1600 kilometers away, and within 400 kilometers of it, the volcano covered the sky for three days. After this eruption, the height of Mount Tambora was suddenly reduced by 1250 meters, and the eruption of volcanic ash was about 300,000 cubic meters, about 7 billion tons, which caused both earthquakes and tsunamis. In total, 150,000 people were killed and 35,000 homes were destroyed. The previous eruption of the Tonga volcano, which interrupted national communications, was enough to see the enormous power of the volcano, and relocating the capital to an area far away from the volcano was a wise choice.
Successful cases of moving the capital
In the past century, many countries have also moved their capitals, all for various reasons. For example, Myanmar moved its capital from its largest city, Yangon, to inland Naypyidaw in order to strengthen central control over remote areas, while Kazakhstan moved its capital from the border city of Almaty to Astana (now renamed Nur-Sultan) in the north. In terms of the purpose of moving the capital, Brazil and Indonesia may be more in line with each other.
Brazil's economic center has always been located in the southeast coastal region, where São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are the first and second largest cities in Brazil, respectively; the urban population pressure is huge, there are more than 1,000 slums in Rio alone, and there are about 12 million people living in slums in Brazil.
After the relocation of the capital, many urban environmental problems can be changed
Therefore, the Brazilian government in the 1960s to carry out the relocation of the capital, the new capital Brasilia is located in the central Goiás plateau, due to scientific architectural planning and policy guidance, in 1987, Brasilia was approved by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee as a cultural heritage list, in 2019 Brasilia GDP reached 75 billion US dollars, has now become the fourth largest city in Brazil, The per capita GDP is as high as 27,000 US dollars, ranking first among Brazilian states, which can be called a successful capital relocation case, Indonesia does not know whether it can complete such a feat, we can wait and see.