Medan, city in western Indonesia, capital of North Sumatra Province, on the island of Sumatra. Medan is located at the confluence of the Deli and Babura rivers, near Belawan (the port of Medan on the Strait of Malacca). The city is the largest on Sumatra and is a major road hub in the Deli region. Connections extend by rail to the north and by road to the interior resorts of the Lake Toba area. In the city are tobacco- and tea-processing factories and plants manufacturing machinery, fiber products, ceramics, brick and tile, and soap. The city is the trade center of a vast hinterland that grows rubber, tobacco, tea, oil palms, fibers, coffee, and forest products. Oil fields are nearby. The port of Belawan, or Belawan Deli, ships rubber, tobacco, petroleum, palm oil, spices, copra, tea, and fibers.
Medan is the site of the University of North Sumatra (1952), the Islamic University of North Sumatra (1952), the palace and residence of the sultan of Deli, a large mosque, and a tobacco-research station. Developing after 1870, the city had a great increase in industrial production in the 1940s and 1950s. It served as a capital of the East Coast residency under Dutch rule and was capital of the state of East Sumatra from 1945 to 1948. Population (1997 estimate) 1,974,300.
