Reading an Indonesian address

ARIEF KEMALUDIN
PT RAJA MAS
JL. RAJAMANTRI KULON III/15
RT 003/05
KEL. TURANGGA
KEC. BANDUNG SELATAN
BANDUNG 40265



In this posting I'd like to take you to read an Indonesian address. It might be very useful for those who want to visit the country (It happens to be my country!). That imaginary address above is a typical Indonesian address. Like an address in any countries, an Indonesian address also has its uniqueness though it is not hard to understand it. Now let's examine each line of the address above:

ARIEF KEMALUDIN, is a name of the addressee. In Indonesia the last name is not necessarily a family name or a surname. There are lots of Indonesian names that don't bear a surname. So in this case, Kemaludin is not necessarily a surname. To identify whether the last name is a given name or a surname in an Indonesian name is very tricky, and there are no specific ways to identify it.

PT RAJA MAS, is signifying a corporation. PT is more or less identical to Co., or Ltd. in English. Some smaller businesses may bear the acronym Fa (Firma) or CV (Commanditaire Vennootschap). But the use of CV has become obsolete since it is derived from Dutch acronym. Alongside with PT, some company's names also bear an acronym 'Tbk." on the tail. It signifies that the company is a public company.

JL. RAJAMANTRI KULON III/15,
JL. is an abbreviation of 'Jalan' which in English is translated as 'street' or 'road'
RAJAMANTRI KULON III, is the name of the street. The roman numeral III on the name signifies that there are other streets which are called RAJAMANTRI KULON. There are RAJAMANTRI KULON I and RAJAMANTRI KULON II somewhere in the vicinity. And the number 15 signifies the number of the building. It is very common to separate the numeral III and the number 15 with a slash (/) in Indonesian address. But the using of 'No.' in place of the slash has become increasingly popular in Indonesia. So, JL. RAJAMANTRI KULON III No. 15 is identical to JL. RAJAMANTRI KULON III/15.

RT 003/05
KEL. TURANGGA
KEC. BANDUNG SELATAN
Those three lines above are the names of the localities in Indonesia. In personal or business letters, since the introduction of post code in Indonesia, the using of these localities in the letters has become obsolete. But if you come to Indonesia and if you would like to find a building, this information containing these localities' names are very helpful.

BANDUNG 40265
Bandung is the name of the city while 40265 is the post code. The post code in Indonesia always consists of 5 digits. If you find the number 1, 4, 5 and 6 in the first digit of the post code. It signifies that the address in the island of Java, the most populous island in the archipelago.

(Written by: Yari NK)