In Indonesia, village or subdistrict is the fourth-level subdivision and the smallest administrative division of Indonesia below a district, regency/city, and province. Similar administrative divisions outside of Indonesia include barangays in the Philippines, Muban in Thailand, civil townships and incorporated municipalities in the United States and Canada, communes in France and Vietnam, dehestan in Iran, hromada in Ukraine, Gemeinden in Germany, comuni in Italy, or municipios in Spain. The UK equivalent are civil parishes in England and communities in Wales. There are a number of names and types for villages in Indonesia, with desa (rural village) being the most frequently used for regencies, and kelurahan (urban village) for cities or for those communities within regencies which have town characteristics. According to the 2019 report by the Ministry of Home Affairs, there are 8,488 urban villages and 74,953 rural villages in Indonesia.[1]North Aceh Regency contained the highest number of rural villages (852) amongst all of the regencies of Indonesia, followed by Pidie Regency with 730 rural villages and Bireuen Regency with 609 rural villages. Prabumulih, with only 12 rural villages, contained the fewest. Counted together, the sixteen regencies of Indonesia containing the most rural villages—namely, North Aceh (852), Pidie (730), Bireuen (609), Aceh Besar (604), Tolikara (541), East Aceh (513), Yahukimo (510), Purworejo (469), Lamongan (462), South Nias (459), Kebumen (449), Garut (421), Bojonegoro (419), Bogor (416), Cirebon (412), and Pati (401)—contain one-third of all the rural villages in Indonesia. Five of these are located in Aceh, two in Highland Papua, three in Central Java, two in East Java, three in West Java, and one in North Sumatra. An average number of rural villages in the regencies and 15 cities of Indonesia is 172 villages. A village is the lowest administrative division in Indonesia, and it is the lowest of the four levels. The average land area of villages in Indonesia is about 25.41 km2 (9.81 sq mi), while its average population is about 3,723 people.
Number of rural villages in districts of Indonesia is usually varying from 40 to 50 villages. However, there are 9 districts in Indonesia with more than 60 rural villages or its variation, including:
Abenaho (107 kampungs)
Dolok (85 rural villages)
Padang Bolak (77 rural villages)
Lhoksukon (75 gampongs)
Peusangan (69 gampongs)
Krayan (65 rural villages)
Padang Tiji, Pidie (each with 64 gampongs respectively)
Welarek (61 kampungs)
The total number of villages in these 9 districts is 667, about 0.7% percent of 74,953 rural villages in Indonesia.
Kelurahan is an urban village term primarily used in cities, but also tiny parts of regencies. All provinces with the exception of Aceh have kelurahan.[2][3] It is commonly translated to English as subdistrict. The leader of a kelurahan is called lurah. Major cities in Indonesia such as Jakarta, Surabaya and Medan are entirely urbanised and thus no rural villages. However, in the case of the province of Aceh, there is exactly no kelurahan and all five cities in the province are entirely rural. A lurah is a civil servant appointed by the district head. According to the Regulation of the Minister of Home Affairs Number 31 of 2006, a kelurahan can be created with the following criteria:
Java and Bali: having at least 4,500 residents or 900 families within an area of at least 3 km2.
Sumatra and Sulawesi: having at least 2,000 residents or 400 families within an area of at least 5 km2.
A kelurahan must have a government office, an established transportation network, adequate communication facilities, and public facilities. If it no longer meets the above conditions it can be abolished or combined with other kelurahans based on the results of research and studies conducted by the city/regency government.[4]
Desa is a rural village terminology used in the majority of regencies in Indonesia, but also in tiny parts of cities.[3] However, several provinces have adopted their own terminology for their traditional villages (desa adat). The leader of a desa does not have a civil servant status and is chosen by the public through an election. According to the Law Number 6 of 2014, desa and desa adat are legal community units that have territorial boundaries that are authorized to regulate and administer government affairs, community interests based on community initiatives, original rights, and/or traditional rights recognized and respected in the government system of the Republic of Indonesia.[5]
Variations of desa terminology in Indonesia include:
In Bali, there are two forms of desa, i.e. desa dinas (service village) and desa adat (cultural village). Desa dinas deals with administrative functions, while desa adat deals with religious and cultural functions.[8]
