Belawan ( zh, t=勿老灣, s=, poj=mài lau ôan) is a

harbor A harbor (American English), harbour (British English; see spelling differences), or haven is a sheltered body of water where ships, boats, and barges can be docked. The term ''harbor'' is often used interchangeably with ''port'', which is a ...

Medan Medan (; English: ) is the capital and largest city of the Indonesian province of North Sumatra, as well as a regional hub and financial centre of Sumatra. According to the National Development Planning Agency, Medan is one of the four mai ...

, North Sumatra. Located on the northeast coast of Sumatra, Belawan is Indonesia's busiest

seaport A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as H ...

outside of

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...

. It constitutes the most northerly of the city of Medan's 21 administrative districts (''kecamatan''), and covers an area of 29.44 km²; at the 2010 Census it had a population of 95,506. There are weekly passenger ships operated by

Pelni Pelni (abbreviation of , ) is the national cargo and passenger shipping company of Indonesia. Its services network spans across the Indonesian archipelago. Mainly serving as connector between bigger cities and to remote islands, Pelni plays an ...

from Medan to

Tanjung Balai Karimun Tanjung Balai Karimun ( Jawi: , ) often abbreviated Tg. Balai, is the main town at the southern end of the Great Karimun Island (''Pulau Karimunbesar''), part of the Karimun Regency within the Riau Islands Province of Indonesia. It is often call ...

Batam Batam is the largest city in the province of Riau Islands, Indonesia. The city administrative area covers three main islands of Batam, Rempang, and Galang (collectively called Barelang), as well as several small islands. Batam Island is the c ...

Riau Islands The Riau Islands ( id, Kepulauan Riau) is a province of Indonesia. It comprises a total of 1,796 islands scattered between Sumatra, Malay Peninsula, and Borneo including the Riau Archipelago. Situated on one of the world's busiest shipping lan ...

and

Tanjung Priok Tanjung Priok is a district of North Jakarta, Indonesia. It hosts the western part of the city's main harbor, the Port of Tanjung Priok (located in Tanjung Priok District and Koja District). The district of Tanjung Priok is bounded by Laksaman ...

, Jakarta A regular ferry service connects Belawan to across the

Strait of Malacca The Strait of Malacca is a narrow stretch of water, 500 mi (800 km) long and from 40 to 155 mi (65–250 km) wide, between the Malay Peninsula (Peninsular Malaysia) to the northeast and the Indonesian island of Sumatra to the southwest, connec ...

to Penang,

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

; at times there was a ferry that also ran from Belawan to

Phuket Phuket (; th, ภูเก็ต, , ms, Bukit or ''Tongkah''; Hokkien:普吉; ) is one of the southern provinces (''changwat'') of Thailand. It consists of the island of Phuket, the country's largest island, and another 32 smaller islands of ...

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

and to

Langkawi Langkawi, officially known by its sobriquet Langkawi, the Jewel of Kedah ( ms, Langkawi Permata Kedah ), is a duty-free island and an archipelago of 99 islands (plus five small islands visible only at low tide in the Strait of Malacca) loc ...

, Malaysia.

History

The port was initially built in 1890, to provide a location where

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

could be transferred directly between rail lines from the interior and deep-draft ships. The harbor expanded in 1907 with the construction of a new section intended for Chinese and indigenous traders, reserving the existing port for European shipping. In the early twentieth century the port's business expanded, with the growth of major

rubber Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Thailand, Malaysia, an ...

and palm oil plantations in northern Sumatra. In the 1920s several major berthing facilities were built. In 1938, the port was the largest port in the Dutch East Indies, in terms of

cargo Cargo consists of bulk goods conveyed by water, air, or land. In economics, freight is cargo that is transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. ''Cargo'' was originally a shipload but now covers all types of freight, including trans ...

value. Cargo volumes dropped substantially after Indonesian independence, and did not reach pre-independence levels again until the mid-1960s. A major restructuring in 1985 saw the construction of a

container A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...

terminal; it almost immediately captured about one-fifth of Indonesia's containerized exports. Major products exported include rubber, palm oil, tea, and coffee. In early 2013, Belawan Port can serve 1.2 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) per year and still gradually expands to 2 million TEUs with Rp.975 billion ($89.7 million) fund.

References

External links

*Airriess, Christopher A (1991). Global economy and port morphology in Belawan, Indonesia. ''Geographical Review'' 81(2):183-196. Populated places in North Sumatra B B {{Water-transport-stub