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Provinces of Indonesia

First-level administrative divisions of Indonesia

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Indonesia is divided into 38 provinces, nine of which have special autonomous status. The terms for special status are "Istimewa" and "Khusus", which translate to "special", or "designated". Provinces are further divided into regencies and cities (formerly called second-level region regencies/cities, or kabupaten/kotamadya daerah tingkat II), which are in turn subdivided into districts (kecamatan). Proposals for the creation of additional provinces (by the splitting of existing ones) have been considered by the Indonesian government, but further action has been suspended since 2013 under a moratorium. However, in 2022, nine years later, Central Papua, Highland Papua, South Papua, and Southwest Papua were created and became the youngest provinces in the country. The enactment of the Law on State Capital in 2022 established a future provincial-level city, Nusantara, which would officially become the 39th province after a presidential decree on relocating the state capital is issued, and it would replace Jakarta as the nation's capital city.

Background

Article 18 paragraph 1 of the 1945 Constitution states that "the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia is divided into provincial regions and those provincial regions are divided into regencies and cities, whereby every one of those provinces, regencies, and municipalities has its regional government, which shall be regulated by laws." This constitutional framework is applied across a geographically dispersed archipelago, reinforcing administrative cohesion over both terrestrial and maritime regions, in line with Indonesia's recognition as a unified archipelagic state under international law.

According to the Law on Regional Government (UU 23/2014) the authority of the Provincial Government includes:

  1. Development planning and control;
  2. Planning, utilization, and community peace;
  3. Implementation of public order and public peace;
  4. Provision of public facilities and infrastructure;
  5. Handling the health sector;
  6. Education and allocation of potential human resources;
  7. Handling social problems across regencies/cities;
  8. Services in the field of manpower across regencies/cities;
  9. Facilitating the development of cooperatives, small and medium enterprises, including across districts/cities;
  10. Environmental control;
  11. Defense services, including across regencies/cities;
  12. Population and civil registration services;
  13. Government general administration services;
  14. Investment administration services, including across regencies/cities;
  15. The implementation of other basic services that cannot be carried out by regencies/cities; and
  16. Other mandatory affairs mandated by laws and regulations.

The authority of the provincial government are government affairs which are located across regencies/municipalities, government affairs whose users are across regencies/municipalities, government affairs whose benefits or negative impacts lie across regencies/municipalities, government affairs which use more resources. efficient if carried out by the province.

Each province has a local government, headed by a governor and a legislative body (DPRD). The governor and members of local representative bodies are elected by popular vote for five-year terms, but governors can only serve for two terms. The general election to elect members of the DPRDs is conducted simultaneously with the national general election. Previously, the general elections for Governor and Vice Governor were not held simultaneously. However, since 2015 regional head elections have been held simultaneously. Under the plan, simultaneous partial local elections were held in February 2017, June 2018 and December 2020, culminating in simultaneous elections for all local executive posts in November 2024 and then every five years.

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