Medan is the capital and the largest city in the Indonesian province of North Sumatra. This vibrant city is home to nearly two million people. Various rituals and centuries-old traditions are still alive and are strictly followed in Medan. Generations of local people have passed the national culture to their descendants. It would be an exaggeration to call Medan a popular tourist destination, but the city has many interesting places to visit. Moreover, life doesn’t stop in Medan even at night. The history of Medan started from a small village called Kampung Medan. Under the guidance of Guru Patimpus Sembiring Pelawi, a small settlement turned into a town in the 90s of the 16th century. The Batak people, a Proto-Malay group of the indigenous people of Sumatra, were the first settlers here. However, the town was developing slowly until the 60s of the 19th century. Twelve years later, colonists from the Netherlands entered the territory of this Indonesian settlement and defeated Deli sultans. The Dutch captured the land and started clearing it for a tobacco plantation. Such a change in the town’s activity helped to fasten the economic development of Medan. Soon, it turned into one of the leading administrative centers of the region and an important center of commerce. All these changes led to the economic growth of the whole western region of Indonesia. In 1915, Medan became the capital of the Sumatra province, but the settlement officially became a town only
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