North Sumatra

Northern Sumatera, with it's colorfull and ethnically mixed population, is after Java, the most crowded province in lndonesia. Currently it has over 11 milion inhabitants and that overshoots Kalimantan or Nusa Tenggara. Dynamic Batak, Malay, Javanese, Indians, Acehnese and Chinese created a big variety of modern and traditional Indonesian culture.

Castle Hill Park in Sibolangit

The economy, which has been based on plantation for a long time, has now been expanded with the big Asahan aluminium project and multiple service-companies, and belongs to the strongest in the country. Tourism thrives mainly on the picturesque beauty of Lake Toba and the Karo highlands, and it just being overshadowed by Bali and Yogyakarta.

 

The province has two important ecological zones - a fertile, swampy plain in the east with mainly plantations, and a central vulcanic chain of mountains (Bukit Barisan) which was formed 70 milion years ago by tectonical movements. The western part does also has a small coastal plain and a chain of low-populated islands at the coast, of which Nias is the most known.

 

The proud of North Sumatra is Lake Toba, which was formed about 75,000 years ago during one of the most powerfull vulcanic eruptions known to human kind; a tremendous disaster, which caused a layer of ashes of 600 metres to fall down. About 30,000 years ago, a new series of explosions formed a new vulcano inside the old one. The hole that was formed by these explosions nowadays measures 120 by 45 kilometres. To compare: the famous eruption of Mount St. Helens (1980) left a crater of only 2 sq.km.

The explosion caused the area around Lake Toba to become an ecological border. Spiecies like Orang-Utan, other Monkeys and 17 kinds of Birds can only be found north of this area, while the Tapit and others including 10 kinds of Birds can only be found south of the border. Probably a big desolated area remained after the eruption, in which not many animals could live, or could cross.

The Batak, now one of the biggest populations in lndonesia, arrived in the highlands about 3 to 4 thousand years ago from the Phillippines and Borneo. About probable earlier inhabitants, nothing is known. Following Toba legends Si Raja Batak was the mythical ancestor of all Batak people, he descended on Pusuk Buhit Mount (1981 metres), a vulcano on the western banks of Lake Toba. Nowadays there are six groups of Batak living around Lake Toba, who distunguish themselves with their languages and habits. Their habitational areas border each other.

Source : kotamedan.com