Explore Yogyakarta

Gembira Loka Zoo is a zoological garden in the Kotagede area of Yogyakarta, opened in 1956 on about 22 hectares along the Gajah Wong River. It keeps around 470 animals, among them Sumatran tigers, Komodo dragons, orangutans and Sumatran elephants, and has a lake, an aquarium, a petting zoo and bridges across the river.

Fort Vredeburg Museum occupies a square Dutch fortress with four corner bastions opposite the Gedung Agung in central Yogyakarta, first built in 1760 and completed in stone in 1787. Opened as a museum in 1992, it presents Indonesia's struggle for independence in and around Yogyakarta in diorama showcases, from Diponegoro's capture in 1830 to 1949.

Beringharjo Market is the old market of Yogyakarta's kraton district, just off Jalan Malioboro, where trade has taken place since 1758. Its Art Deco market hall was built from 1925 to 1926, and its stalls sell batik, clothing, souvenirs, market snacks, jamu herbal drinks, household goods and antiques.

Malioboro Street is the main shopping street of Yogyakarta, running about 750 metres south from Tugu railway station towards Beringharjo Market, on the line between the palace and Mount Merapi. Stalls selling a wide range of goods line its sidewalks, and in the evening open-air lesehan food stalls and street musicians set up along it.

The Sonobudoyo Museum is a museum of Javanese history and culture beside the north square of Yogyakarta, opened in 1935 on the initiative of the Java Instituut. Its collection includes Neolithic ceramics, 8th-century bronze sculptures, wayang puppets, keris daggers and masks, and wayang and dance performances are staged there in the evening.

Kraton Ngayogyakarta Hadiningrat is the palace of the Sultans of Yogyakarta, built in 1755–1756 for Hamengkubuwono I and still the residence of the reigning Sultan and his family. Visitors tour the Kedhaton courtyards and pavilions, with rooms of royal heirlooms, court dress and paintings including works by Raden Saleh, and see dance and gamelan performances.

The Dirgantara Mandala Museum is the central museum of the Indonesian Air Force, housed since 1984 in a former sugar factory building in the Adisutjipto air base complex east of Yogyakarta. It holds about 1,150 objects, including aircraft from the Second World War to the jet age, such as a PBY Catalina, a P-51 Mustang and a MiG-21.

Tugu Yogyakarta is a white pillar monument in the middle of a crossroads north of Malioboro Street, first built by Sultan Hamengkubuwono I in 1755 as the Golong-Gilig pillar on the line between the palace and Mount Merapi. After the original collapsed in an earthquake in 1867, the Dutch colonial government rebuilt it in 1889 in its present square form.

Taman Sari is the former water garden of the Sultans of Yogyakarta, built between 1758 and 1765 for Hamengkubuwono I as a place of rest and refuge for the royal family, just south-west of the palace. Its central bathing complex, Umbul Binangun, has three pools with mushroom-shaped fountains behind carved gateways.

Kalasan Temple is an 8th-century Buddhist temple about 13 kilometres east of Yogyakarta, beside the main road to Prambanan. An inscription dated 778 records its founding as a shrine to the goddess Tara, making it the oldest temple on the Prambanan Plain; its walls carry carved niches crowned with stupas and traces of an ancient plaster called vajralepa.

Ratu Boko is a 16-hectare archaeological site on a plateau about three kilometres south of Prambanan, on the plain east of Yogyakarta. Unlike the region's temples, it is thought to be the remains of a fortified palace from the 8th century; visitors pass through its two-level main gateway to terraces with a walled pendopo, bathing pools and meditation caves.

Prambanan is a 9th-century Hindu temple compound on the plain about 17 km north-east of Yogyakarta, on the border of the Yogyakarta region and Central Java. Dedicated to Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, it is dominated by the 47-metre Shiva temple, inaugurated in 856. The compound once held 240 temples and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Sewu is an eighth-century Buddhist temple complex on the Prambanan plain east of Yogyakarta, 800 metres north of the Prambanan temples. Inscriptions of 782 and 792 name it Manjusrigrha; its 249 shrines are laid out as a mandala around a large central temple, and it lies within the Prambanan Park grounds.