Padang Panjang

Padang Panjang is a small highland city in West Sumatra, Indonesia, about 70 kilometres inland from the provincial capital Padang. It sits on a plateau beneath the volcanoes Mount Marapi and Mount Singgalang, which gives it cooler temperatures and the nickname Kota Hujan, the Rainy City. The name means long field and recalls the savanna that early Minangkabau settlers found there. It was a popular hill retreat in the Dutch colonial period and later a centre of Islamic education, earning the title Egypt van Andalas. It is home to the Indonesian Art Institute Padang Panjang and the Minangkabau Cultural Documentation and Information Center. The city was formed by a law of 1956 as an enclave inside Tanah Datar Regency, covers 23 square kilometres and had 60,264 people in 2025.