On 19 January 2022, Indonesia's parliament approved a bill to relocate the capital from Jakarta, which is rapidly sinking. The new site is approximately 2,000km away in the province of East Kalimantan on Borneo island, which the country shares with Malaysia and Brunei. It will be called Nusantara meaning 'archipelago' in Javanese.
Jakarta is home to more than 10 million people, with 30 million people in its greater metro area. It has become crowded, polluted and is sinking at an alarming rate due to the over-extraction of groundwater. Jakarta has faced serious infrastructure problems due to it sitting on swampy land and flooding has been exacerbated by climate change, with experts predicting a third of the city could be underwater by 2050.
Why Indonesia's Capital Jakarta is Sinking By BBC News [1:10] Description: Why Jakarta is one of the world's fastest-sinking megacities Indonesia's capital Jakarta has sunk by up to 4m in places since 1970. But what is causing it?