Alun-alun

Wringin kurung kembar or the twin trimmed banyan trees enclosed within fences in the center of northern alun-alun of Yogyakarta, c. 1857
The alun-alun in Batusangkar, Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), 1938
Monument dedicated to Karel Frederik Holle in the alun-alun of Garoet, 1901

An alun-alun (Javanese, correctly hyphenated but occurs occasionally without hyphen; also found as aloen-aloen, aloon aloon, and erroneously alon-alon) or Square (English) is a large, central, open lawn square common to villages, towns and cities in Indonesia.

Commonly, alun-alun in modern-day Indonesia refers only to the two large open squares of kraton palace compounds.

Each kraton has two alun-alun: the most important and northern alun-alun lor and the less important and commonly smaller southern alun-alun kidul. The court of Pakubuwana in Surakarta is unique as it incorporates the alun-alun kidul within the defensive wall of the kraton proper.[1]

  1. ^ Studies in Indonesian archaeology, By Willem F Stutterheim, Netherlands Institute for International Cultural Relations and M. Nijhoff 1956, 158 pp, p. 102