Yogyakarta

Yogyakarta was founded in 1755, when the Treaty of Giyanti split the Mataram sultanate in two and Prince Mangkubumi, taking the title Hamengkubuwono I, built a new kraton on the plain between Merapi and the southern sea. The palace, its walls, the two squares and the great mosque were laid out on a north–south axis that still organises the city. A second, smaller princely house, the Pakualaman, was created under British rule in 1813.

The city was at the centre of the Java War of 1825 to 1830, led by Prince Diponegoro, a member of the Yogyakarta royal family, against Dutch authority; his defeat left the courts with ceremonial prestige but little power, and the Dutch built Fort Vredeburg opposite the palace to keep watch on them. Sugar mills, a railway and colonial schools followed in the 19th century, and by the early 20th century Yogyakarta had become a centre of Indonesian nationalist education and of the Muhammadiyah reform movement, founded in the Kauman district in 1912.

When the Dutch reoccupied Jakarta after 1945, the republic moved its capital here, and the city was the seat of government from 1946 until 1948; Sultan Hamengkubuwono IX put the court's authority and finances behind the republic. In return Yogyakarta was made a Special Region with the sultan as its hereditary governor, an arrangement unique in Indonesia. Gadjah Mada University opened in the palace buildings in 1949. Since then the city has grown as a centre of education and the arts, absorbing the shock of the 2006 earthquake, which killed thousands in the surrounding districts, and repeated eruptions of Merapi.

Yogyakarta thinks of itself as the guardian of Javanese culture. The kraton keeps a full court establishment of retainers, musicians and dancers, and its gamelan orchestras, classical bedhaya and serimpi dances and all-night wayang kulit shadow plays are performed both as ritual and as public entertainment. The sultan's twin roles as monarch and governor, and the court's ceremonial relationship with Merapi to the north and the southern sea, remain part of everyday belief for many residents.

Batik is the city's craft above all others, worked in the muted browns, indigo and cream of the court style, with patterns that were once reserved for royalty; Kotagede's silversmiths, leather puppet makers and mask carvers form the rest of the artisan tradition. Yogyakarta is also Indonesia's most active contemporary art city, with a dense network of studios, galleries and independent spaces, a strong tradition of street art and printmaking, and a lively independent music scene.

Its other identity is as a student city: dozens of universities, hundreds of thousands of students from across the archipelago, and a politics of protest and debate that has often mattered nationally. The result is a place that is formal and traditional in one register and young and irreverent in another. Manners lean to understatement — voices are kept low, refusals are softened, and open anger is considered shameful.

About 375,000 people live in the city proper, with the built-up area spreading well into the neighbouring districts of Sleman and Bantul to hold a much larger population. Students make up a large share of residents, so the city empties noticeably in the long holidays and around Idul Fitri.

Education is the leading industry, followed by tourism, crafts, trade and a growing creative and digital sector; batik, silver and leatherwork are made in household workshops, and agriculture continues on the volcanic soils around the city. Wages are among the lowest in Java, and the cost of housing and land has risen faster than incomes, a common complaint.

The day starts before dawn with the call to prayer and the opening of the markets, and the morning is the working part of it. Afternoons slow in the heat, and evenings bring the angkringan carts, the lesehan mats on Malioboro and the campuses' cafés. Motorcycles dominate the streets. Traffic congestion, the pressure of hotel and apartment building on water supplies, and the balance between tourism and ordinary life in the kampung around the palace are the issues under discussion; the city also lives with the routine preparedness of a place beneath an active volcano.

Yogyakarta's cooking is the sweetest in Java. Gudeg, the city's signature, is young jackfruit simmered for hours with palm sugar, coconut milk and teak leaves, which turn it reddish brown; it is served with rice, a hard-boiled egg in the same sauce, chicken, tofu and krecek, a fiery stew of beef skin. It is eaten at any hour, including at dawn from stalls that open all night.

Street food defines the rest. Angkringan carts sell nasi kucing, banana-leaf parcels of rice with a spoonful of anchovy or tempeh, alongside skewers of gizzard, quail eggs and tofu, and glasses of tea; near the railway station the speciality is kopi joss, black coffee into which a glowing coal is dropped. Sate klathak, mutton skewered on bicycle spokes and seasoned with little more than salt, comes from Bantul to the south, and fiery dishes of beef skin and chillies are a local speciality.

Sweet things travel: bakpia, small pastries filled with mung bean paste, are baked in the Pathok district and bought as gifts, and geplak, coloured cakes of coconut and sugar, come from Bantul. Everyday Javanese staples fill the warungs — nasi goreng, gado-gado, soto ayam, tempeh and tofu fried in a dozen ways — and jamu, bitter herbal tonics, are still sold from baskets and small shops.