Skip to content
Mixroutes
Medan
Capital and largest city of North Sumatra, Indonesia

Medan

Medan is the capital and largest city of the Indonesian province of North Sumatra.

Plan a trip to Medan→From Banda Aceh

The nearby Strait of Malacca, Port of Belawan, and Kualanamu International Airport make Medan a regional hub and multicultural metropolis, acting as a financial centre for Sumatra and a gateway to the western part of Indonesia. About 60% of the economy in North Sumatra is backed by trading, agriculture, and processing industries, including exports from its 4 million acres of palm oil plantations. The National Development Planning Agency listed Medan as one of the four main central cities in Indonesia, alongside Jakarta, Surabaya, and Makassar. In terms of population, it is the most populous city in Indonesia outside of the island of Java. Its population, as of 2024, is approximately equal to the country of Moldova.

Get in

Getting to Medan

Medan's Kualanamu International Airport and Belawan sea port are visa-free and visa-on-arrival points. For more visa information, see the Indonesia page. Medan's civilian airport, 1 Kualanamu International Airport (KNO IATA), is in Deli Serdang, about 45 minutes from the city. It handles domestic and regional international flights. After arrival, ATMs and an information desk are available inside the airport.

See

Worth seeing

Most tourists stop in Medan only to get transport to elsewhere in Sumatra, but Medan offers a glimpse of a large Indonesian city still unfrequented by western tourists, and shouldn't be quickly dismissed. Medan is more chaotic and has a bit more litter than Jakarta or Denpasar and open sewers abound.

Eat

Where to eat

With its diversity of ethnic group, Medan is a culinary paradise. Here you will find several of Indonesia's regional cuisines, as well as localised versions of Chinese and Indian cuisine.

  1. 01
    Kedai Kopi Apek

    Historic coffee house with excellent Lintong Coffee served up by Apek.

  2. 02
    Bollywood Food Centre

    This is nice place for real, homely Indian food.

  3. 03
    Cahaya Baru Indian Restaurant

    Jalan Teuku Cik Ditiro (In Little India), cahayabaruindianfood@gmail.com.

  4. 04
    Restoran Garuda
  5. 05
    Lontong Kak Lin

    Serving tasty and cheap lontong sayur (rice cakes in hot vegetables curry), this humble eatery is not much to look at for the uninitiated.

How locals move

Getting around Medan the local way

  • Get inOr take a rickshaw to the train station and take one of the last trains of the day.
  • Get inThis is where a lot of the smaller minivans go, and where travelers need to go to make connecting buses to further cities.
  • Get inFerries no longer run to Penang from Belawan.
  • Get inThe nearest international ferry port is Tanjung Balai, Asahan, about four hours by train from Medan.
  • Get aroundThere is also a form of public transport known as the angkot (small minivan).
  • Get aroundSmall minivans (called sudako or angkot by locals) have painted numbers (1 to 267 in Medan, or sometimes letters like MRX) that signify their routes, which even locals don't have memorized.
  • Get aroundOne easy route is Minibus #3 from the great mosque (at the side of Yuki Simpang Raya mall) to Sambu bus station near Medan Mall.

From Wikivoyage: Medan, CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us. Last edited 2026-09.

Text adapted from Wikipedia and Wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photograph: Wikimedia Commons (see file page), Wikimedia Commons.