About Lombok

Geographical Lombok is situated in the province Nusa Tenggara Barat. Together with the Sumbawa Islands it formats the Island group east of Bali, only 50 kilometers distant from Lombok. From the west coast of Lombok you can see the magnificent sunset view of Bali's mountain Agung.

Lombok's total size is 4.680 km2 and the population 2,5 million habitants. The capital is Mataram together with adjoining municipalities Chakranegara and Ampenan, having a population of 340.266 persons.

Political
Indonesia is in principal central governed from Jakarta, but more and more decentralization is taking place. Lombok has its own local parliament and every 5 years elections are held for choosing the members of Parliament. Parliament appoints the Governor. Lombok's government get more freedom to handle important issues by themselves.

Economical
The 4 pillars of Lombok's Gross Regional Domestic Product are agriculture (25%), mining & quarrying (30%), trade, hotels & restaurants (12,5%) and services (11,75%).

Climate
The climate on Lombok is the same as said for Indonesia in general. An average temperature of 29 degrees Celsius. Characterized by 2 seasons : summer and winter season. Summer season with more sunshine than winter season. But also the winter seasons on Lombok do have a lot of sunshine and sometimes alternate by some heavy but short showers.

Landscape
Lombok is world wide known for her pearl white sandy beaches, but it offers more than that : beautiful mountains, rice fields, luxuriant valleys, water falls, tropical islands like Gili Trawangan, Gili Meno and Gili Air and naturally the hallmark of Lombok : the Rinjani, second highest mountain of Indonesia, determine the landscape and view of Lombok.

Tourism
Lombok is also called the "New Bali" and has become Indonesia's new "in" destination. Comparisons with neighboring Bali are inevitable. Lombok's area and population are just slightly smaller. Climate and landscape are similar. Even there is a great number of Balinese people living and working on Lombok.

The almost 400.000 foreign tourists who yearly visit the island is not as much as the number landing in Bali, but this figure is sure to rise as the many new hotels being constructed open for business. Also the development of the new international airport in 2005 (see Infrastructure) will boost the number of tourist coming to Lombok from all over the world.

Not only the central government but also Lombok's local government takes great concern in developing and improving the tourist industry by giving incentives to foreign investors, improving infrastructure in tourist centers, providing adequate information about Lombok as tourist destination and so on.

For commercial investors on Lombok it is important to know that local government appointed only specific areas as tourism areas, the Tourism Development Areas (click here for see the Map). Only in these areas it is possible to develop tourist projects like hotels, boutique and villa resorts and so on.

Infrastructure
Lombok has a good network of roads. One good maintained orbital road around Lombok which connects the different tourism and commercial areas. Off the main roads the asphalt roads are not so smooth anymore and need constantly repaired.

Taxi service in Lombok is excellent (Bluebird Group) : honest, good service, very reasonable prices. If for a short stay and for not too long trips the ideal transportation.

There are 2 main harbors in Lombok : most known is Lembar, where the ferry to and from Bali arrives, as well as Mabua express.

Selaparang Airport in Lombok's capital city Mataram is the only airport at this moment on Lombok. However this is going to change with the development of the new international airport projected near Praya (central Lombok).

You can go oround to lombok with this guide (lombok map)


or you can see it at this link