Pekanbaru

Masjid Agung An-Nur, Pekanbaru


Pekanbaru is the capital of Riau Province in Sumatra, Indonesia. The city, which has a population close to 800,000 people, is located on the Siak River which empties into the Straits of Malacca.

Pekanbaru has been established as early as the 17th century. Much of the town as it exists today was the result of development put in place by the Dutch in the 19th century, when Pekan Baru was the centre of the coffee plantation and coal mining industries. Today Pekanbaru is the base for Indonesia's petroleum industry. Oil wealth is apparent in Pekanbaru, as seen from the many infrastructure project in the city.

Pekanbaru strives to be the cleanest city in Indonesia, and in fact received the Indonesian Clean City award in 2006 and 2007. However, it also suffers from haze brought on by forest fires which usually happens in the dry middle part of the year.

Soeman HS Library, Pekanbaru

Travel to Pekanbaru

The main gateway to Pekanbaru is the Sultan Syarif Qasim II International Airport (PKU). It receives flights from neighbouring cities including Jakarta, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Medan.

Budget travellers can now fly to Pekanbaru by AirAsia from Kuala Lumpur (KLIA) and by firefly from Subang. Other airlines flying to Pekanbaru includes Garuda, Lion Air, Mandala Airlines, Riau Airlines, Sriwijaya Air and Batavia Air.

Sultan Syarif Kasim II International Airport, Pekanbaru

Places of Interest in Pekanbaru

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About this website

Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.

While I try my best to provide you information as accurate as I can get it to be, I do apologize for any errors and for outdated information which I am unaware. Nevertheless, I hope that what I have described here will be useful to you.