Overview
The park was Tien Suharto’s project and expresses the New Order’s idea of the country: unity in diversity, with each province rendered as a house, a costume and a dance. It was contested from the start — clearing the land displaced hundreds of families and drew student protests in 1972 — and it is still the fastest way to see how the state has chosen to present forty years of national identity. The provincial houses are real buildings, several of them accurate reconstructions of forms that are now rare at home.
Highlights
Take the cable car first for the lake and its miniature islands, then walk the pavilions of the provinces you will not otherwise reach — Papua, Maluku, North Sumatra. Weekdays are quiet; Sundays are a Jakarta family outing on a large scale. Allow half a day, and use the shuttle rather than walking between the far pavilions.