The History of Tarakan City

The name of Tarakan City comes from Tidung language formed by two words, Ngakan means “eat” and Tarak means “meet”. It tries to tell us long ago Tarakan island was used as a meeting place by Tidung ethnic which live as fisherman. As time goes by Tarakan city which was known as city of oil at that time has only one subdistrict, Tarakan.
Based on government regulation No. 47 1981, the status of Tarakan subdistrict was developed as administrative city, authenticated by the Minister of Home Affairs on March 23rd 1982, so 23rd March becomes the date of The Birthday of The Administrative City of Tarakan. This City has a Motto called “Mantap”, abbreviation of : Nyaman (Comfort), Tertib (Order), Aman (Secure), Permai (Beautiful). The administrative city of Tarakan now split in two subdistricts region, they are West Tarakan Subdistrict and East Tarakan Subdistrict.


Geography
Size of Tarakan Island : 241,5 km² with about 96,109 people. Tarakan Island is located to north side of Samarinda, on east coastal area of Bulungan Regency, between 3° 19′ – 3° 20′ North Latitude and 117° 34′ – 117° 38′ East Longitude.


Borders
North : Bordering with coastal area of Sembakung Subdistrict and
Bunyu Subdistrict.
South : Bordering with coastal area of Tanjung Palas Subdistrict
West : Bordering with coastal area of Bunyu Island
East : Bordering with Sulawesi Sea.


Places of interests
Amal Beach is a beautiful beach with white sand, located at West Tarakan Subdistrict. Visitors can watch public shows every Sunday. To reach this place, visitors can go through Kampung Empat, then they go east as far as 6 km by passing native people’s field.



Source : http://www.petra.ac.id