1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
Indonesia
Compare this sourced profile of Medan, Indonesia before planning. Stable fields identify the place; confirm current transport, access and opening details with official sources.
01What the data says — and does not say
This page separates the checked GeoNames row for Medan—2,486,283, Asia/Jakarta, and source coordinates—from live travel claims. Those fields identify and compare the record; they do not prove current transport, accessibility, census totals, or a City Atlas Club visit.
Wikidata's localized description: city in North Sumatra Province, Indonesia.
02This city's dataset fingerprint
The source row behind Medan is GeoNames ID 1214520. Its recorded administrative path is Kota Medan → North Sumatra → Indonesia, and GeoNames classifies the place as a first-order administrative seat. Medan occurs once as a primary city label in this atlas sample; the numeric ID remains the durable source key if names change. The city row itself was updated 2026-06-10; that date belongs to the source record, not to every transport or visitor detail in the real destination.
Within the fixed 1,206-record atlas, Medan ranks 155 by recorded population. Inside the 29 selected Indonesia entries it ranks 5; inside the 632 entries in its broad region it ranks 99. Its 2,486,283 population value is 2.13 times the 1,166,066 median for the country cohort and 2.47 times the 1,008,426 regional median. Medan falls between the leading tenth and quarter of this atlas's Indonesia population cohort. Medan's recorded value reaches at least twice the country-cohort median in this snapshot. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Medan's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Ipoh at 290.173 km with 759,952 recorded people; Kota Kuala Muda at 292.19 km with 544,984 recorded people; Sungai Petani at 305.596 km with 544,851 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 15.423 km. Compared with Ipoh, Medan's recorded population is 3.27 times as large. Against Medan, Ipoh follows Daerah Kinta → Perak → Malaysia in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the selected Malaysia cohort rather than Indonesia, uses Asia/Kuala_Lumpur instead of Asia/Jakarta, and carries the same first-order administrative seat class. Its recorded population is below Medan's. Against Medan, Kota Kuala Muda follows Kuala Muda → Kedah → Malaysia in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the selected Malaysia cohort rather than Indonesia, uses Asia/Kuala_Lumpur instead of Asia/Jakarta, and carries populated place rather than first-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is below Medan's. Against Medan, Sungai Petani follows Kuala Muda → Kedah → Malaysia in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the selected Malaysia cohort rather than Indonesia, uses Asia/Kuala_Lumpur instead of Asia/Jakarta, and carries populated place rather than first-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is below Medan's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 1,105 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Medan's nearest-coordinate gap belongs to the wider half of atlas distances. This pattern can reveal whether other catalog references are geographically close, but it cannot establish whether a border crossing is possible or practical, or whether rail, road, fare, or journey-time connections exist. Read as one record signature, GeoNames 1214520, the coordinate pair 3.5833 / 98.6667, country rank 5 of 29, and neighbor GeoNames 1734634 at 290.173 km bind Medan to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Medan's reference point is 3.5833° north and 98.6667° east. The IANA identifier Asia/Jakarta is shared by 23 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPLA is shared by 429 rows. Medan's row carries both second- and first-order administrative labels. Medan's point falls in the near-equatorial coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Medan's time-zone field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its place class is shared more broadly. GeoNames supplies no elevation for Medan, so the profile preserves that missing value instead of guessing terrain. Together these fields form a reproducible identity check for this page, not a claim about walkability, climate or accessibility.
03Nearby atlas references
Medan's closest other entries in this atlas are Ipoh (290.173 km), Kota Kuala Muda (292.19 km), Sungai Petani (305.596 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Medan, confirm changing decisions with current first-party sources:
Read how City Atlas Club verifies changing travel facts →05Sources and freshness
GeoNames updated the row 2026-06-10; the atlas checked the dataset 2026-08-04. Available Wikidata fields were verified in the same run.
GeoNames data: CC BY 4.0. Wikidata labels and descriptions: CC0 1.0.