Magelang

Magelang is a city in Central Java, Indonesia, one of six cities in the province that are governed by their own mayor and not by the surrounding regency. It lies in the middle of Magelang Regency between Mount Merbabu and Mount Sumbing, 43 kilometres north of Yogyakarta and 75 kilometres south of Semarang, in a fertile and densely populated farming region bounded by the Progo and Elo rivers. The city covers 18.56 square kilometres and had 129,043 people in the official mid-2025 estimate. Its history is traced to a stele of 11 April 907 that mentions the villages of Mantyasih and Glanggang, and under Dutch rule it became a centre of the economy and a military post, a role it keeps with the Indonesian Military Academy. It is the closest major town to Borobudur.