Jakarta atlas maker Holtorf goes digital

Marco Kusumawijaya, Contributor, Jakarta

Gunther W. Holtorf, the maker of Jakarta Street Atlas and Names Index, recently arrived back in Jakarta with an interactive CD- ROM version of the map.

Users can search for places by clicking one of the 30 buttons -- which represent 30 special groups or categories -- and then typing in the place's name.

"Street Name" is just one category. Others include: Apartment, Embassy, School, University, Estate, Hotel, Kelurahan (subdistrict), Housing Complex, Market Place, Shopping Mall, Toll Gate, Bus Terminal, Hospital, Map Number, Post-code and even Flyover/Underpass.

As with street names, users can search for new as well as old names, as long as the latter are still being used. One good example is the street where The Jakarta Post office lies. It has been changed to Jl. Gelora X; but you can also type in Palmerah Selatan, the old name. Unfortunately this CD-ROM is not applicable to Mac computers.

Holtorf actually started computer-assisted processing with the 12th edition of the map issued last year, resulting in the first map in the world in which all the streets are completely digitized into vectors.

The map has accurate latitudes and longitudes. Budapest's skillful cartographers mostly do this work, as they are "very good, although not very fast". (In 1977 when Holtorf started, they were also very cheap).

The interactive CDS-ROM's accompany re-prints of the 12th edition atlases, with each pair to be sold at the original price of the first prints last year Rp 199,000 (about US$23). The CD- ROM, but not the re-prints, contains some 9,000 corrections made by March 2003. Holtorf claims that neither in Europe, nor Asia, this format of map exists -- as far as he knows.

The 30 select categories reflect conditions specific to Jakarta and are designed to fulfill what Holtorf describes as Jakarta folks's peculiar need to search for neighborhoods or places, as opposed to street names. It includes 1,300 real estates.

So if you are looking for a house in a housing estate, you can search the location by entering either the street or the estate name. You cannot type in your street number just yet. Considering that numbers are not always consecutive along Jakarta streets this would be far too much to expect old Holtorf to provide.

For example, there are five number 5's on Jl. Fatmawati. And on Jl. Sumenep in Menteng no.26 replaced the original number of a house upon the request of the occupant who believes 26 is his lucky number.

The map is devised to accommodate the navigational needs of motorists. As such, it is actually no longer a "Falk" map.

The Falk system was developed in Europe in 1946, based on the specific condition of European cities: many walked or used public transport, while land-use was stabile. Two colors are predominantly used as background: pink (from the color of roofs) to signify built areas, and green to signify un-built areas.

Basically the whole map's background is colored solid. Street names are blurred by such a background. Main streets are colored yellow and exaggerated in width, misleading users.

Holtorf's map is predominantly white in background, giving maximum contrast to street names and other texts in black. Other colors are still used, but selectively and mostly in transparent washes. He uses pink only to signify dense kampongs, for example.

Maximum clarity and contrast are important for motorists, the intended users of Holtorf's map. They need to notice information at a glance. It shows u-turns, one-way streets and their hierarchy. Overlaps between pages are generous and grids are smaller to speed up or make searches more accurate. Three sets of "key maps" are provided at three scales: 1: 330,000 for the whole of Jabotabek (Jakarta, Bogor, Tangerang, Bekasi) and surroundings; 1: 150,000 for Jakarta and surroundings; and 1:75,000 for large parts of them. The detailed pages are on a larger scale of 1: 12,500, as compared with the previous edition at 1:15,000.

Jakarta and its surroundings does seem to require a clear and accurate map -- more than just a Falk's -- because its organic form has grown haphazardly over a long period, very much like Japanese and European cities.

In the USA, said Holtorf, there is no tradition of complicated and detailed map making. Its cities have inherited gridiron patterns from their colonial past and are not as confusing. Jakarta is difficult for a map maker to view as a whole due to the rapid level of growth, characterized by a lack of planning.

Slowly but surely, the public imagination of Jakarta has surpassed its administrative boundaries. Suburbanization has blurred the fringe areas between the mother city and its surrounding planets (Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, and Bekasi) into a vague continuum.

Developed infrastructures have made the whole region the de facto socio-cultural and economic space of the next generation. They must be free to move and connect efficiently within and outside the continuum shortened as Jabotabek.

Planning professionals and authorities are mostly lagging behind in treating the region as a continuum -- arguing about jurisdictions and reluctant to take joint action regarding important cross-boundary issues, such as the environment and transportation.

Whereas a map of Jabotabek serves as just the opposite: confirming the factual physical, socio-cultural and economic continuum and helping its users to move within it efficiently. It is also changing the mentality of the metropolitan citizens. For a very long time, Indonesians used to live by an expression Malu bertanya sesat di jalan (if you are too shy to ask, you get lost). Now they do not need to ask, to use the "mouth compass", they can just look at the map!

Holtorf's 12th edition map has indeed expanded to cover not only Jabotabek, but also Karawang (to the end of the toll road at Cikampek) and Cipanas (part of Cianjur district). The map maker promises that the 13th edition will also cover Sukabumi, Cianjur, Purwakarta, Cikampek, Padalarang and the western parts of Bandung, more or less covering the factual, ever expanding living space of Jakarta's middle class".

Jasinga -- a part of Bogor district closer to Jakarta than some "other places", will not be covered precisely because it is "not a place that is often visited by Jakarta folk". Holtorf has a clear deliberate bias toward Jakarta.

Holtorf also recognizes the popular perception of areas by framing each area in one page, according to how they are generally perceived to be bordered. He puts the area's popular name in the middle of the page. Therefore we have the whole of "Kebayoran Baru" on page 54, most of Menteng on page 35, and Cinere on page 84.

What is special about Holtorf's atlas is, in the last instance, the amount of information contained in it. With very few books written about the contemporary condition of Jakarta, this atlas is such a book -- only presented in an atlas format.

Street names are but 30 percent of the book's content and value. It provides a base for future map-makers of Jakarta. It sells quality information, collected through a tenacious working ethos. Perhaps that's why others produce a lesser quality map than Holtorf's and not many cities have similar maps.

However, his map is not very useful for users of public transportation, excluding taxis. One may indeed hope to see Holtorf's monumental work overlaid with information about public transport -- if this is possible, considering its changing routes and irregular services. Neither is the map satisfying for those looking for a beautiful image of Jakarta's Metropolis. But, better than that, it is an honest view of the city.