Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara Province, Lesser Sunda Islands, Indonesia

🇮🇩 Mataram (Kota Mataram) is a city and the capital of the Indonesian province of West Nusa Tenggara. The city is surrounded on all the landward sides by (but is not administratively contained within) West Lombok Regency and lies on the western side of the island of Lombok, Indonesia. It is also the largest city of the province.

The city is an economic, cultural, and education centre of the province. It hosts all public universities in the province, the main airport as well as the only international airport in the province, and also main government offices. Greater Mataram Area (Indonesian: Mataram Raya) 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 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 ion 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 aqre linked by a wide, 8km-long one-way street thhich 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.

Administrative division The city consists of six districts (kecamatan), and includes a number of administrative villages (rural desa and urban kelurahan also called "kampungs") in each district.

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, Chinese, 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 city was known as "Ampenan". Despite being urban dwellers, the Sasak people of Mataram still identify strongly with their origins and the Sasak culture.

Religion Islam is the religion of over 80% of the population of Mataram. Hinduism has the second largest following with 14% of the population. Other religions practised in Mataram are Christianity, Buddhism, and Confucianism.

Language Mataram society normally speaks the Sasak language, Bahasa Sasak, which is the native language of the indigenous people of Lombok. Indonesian is the language most widely used in formal business, education and government contexts. When at home or a place of recreation, Mataram residents tend to use the Mataram Sasak language. There is also a large community of Balinese speakers in the city.