Denpasar

Shopping center in Denpasar, Bali


Denpasar is the biggest town in Bali. It has a population of around 300,000 or a tenth of Bali's total population. The second biggest town is old colonial capital ofn Singaraja. Among tourists, however, the most important towns are Kuta, on the southern part of the island, and Ubud, to the north of Denpasar.

The Bali Barat National Park, on the west side of the island, is the only national park on Bali. It covers an area of 19,000 hectares and is quite inaccessible to the general tourist. It is home to the endangered Bali Starling, one of the rarest birds in the world, and one of 280 species of birds found in Bali. The national park is also a wildlife refuge for the Sunda pangolin, Indian muntjac, the mousedeer, the leopard cat, black giant squirrel, among others.

Tourism is the single most important factor influencing Balinese society today. Until just about 30 years ago, Bali was still a very much agriculture-based society. While most of its population are still farmers and fishermen, almost every family has somebody involved in the travel industry, whether working directly within a hotel or a travel company, or through secondary activities from being an artisan producing Balinese handicrafts or performing in the many Balinese dances. Despite repeated terrorist assaults on the travel industry, Bali has quickly rebounded, registering record numbers of tourist in 2008, when close to 2 million visitors came.

Now, Denpasar is as I've mentioned, the capital of Bali. It was chosen as one in 1958, but even before then, it was already the royal capital of the Badung Kingdom, which covers much of what we know as South Bali today, from the late 18th century to the early part of the 20th century. Although destination-wise, flights to Bali are labelled Denpasar, in fact the international airport is located far to the south, an hour away from the city. To say that the airport is in Denpasar is not accurate.

Denpasar has a population of around half a million people, so it is by far the biggest city in Bali. The city itself is not much different from any other Indonesian cities, except for the "Balinese elements" that crop out regularly.

As it was the capital of the Badung Kingdom, remnants of buildings from that period is still around. The royal palace, however, was razed by the Dutch when they invaded in 1906, culminating with the mass suicide of the Badung royal family that year. The site of the suicide, called Taman Puputan, is today Denpasar's central square.

On this page please find some of the sights in Denpasar that you might want to visit when there.

Location Map of Denpasar

Click here to view the Google Map to Denpasar.

Puputan Monument, Denpasar