Medan was located in Bunga Rampe IV Street, Simalingkar B District, Medan Tungtungan Sub district, about 10 kilometers from the centre of the city. Medan mayor, Abdullah, opened the zoo on April 14 2005 that at this time is the new zoo, the KBM area with the width 30 hectare. On earlier days, Medan Zoo was located in Brigjen Katamso Street, Kampung Baru District, Medan Maimun.
This zoo has taken a lot of interest from the citizen. Around 1.000 visitors visited this zoo each week ends. In working days, the number of visitors is about 150 visitors every time days. One of them was the Sumatran Tiger or Panthera Tigris Sumatrae, only founds in Sumatran Island. The Sumatran tiger occupied in the low land forest, the mountainous and semi-mountainous forest, and in the swamp forest in Sumatran Island.
It is estimated that there is only 400 to 500 tigers sub species Panthera tigris sumatrae that still inhabits in five of Indonesian wild life gardens in the Sumatran island, and was approximately 250 tigers that was maintained inside zoo worldwide. The Sumatran tiger had the darkest color between all the sub-species of the tiger. His black pattern was wide and closely patterned and occasionally doubled. The Sumatran tiger are different with the Siberian tiger with the striped front leg. The Sumatran tiger was the smallest tiger in the sub-species of the tiger. The Sumatran tiger male had 2.4 meters (8 foot) long from head to tail weighted 120 kilogram (264 pounds) with the height 90 centimeters. The Sumatran tiger female also measuring 2.2 meters (7 foot) long weighted 900 (198 pounds).
Medan is the capital of the province of North Sumatra, Indonesia. Located in the northern part of the province along the coast, Medan is the third largest city in Indonesia. The city is bordered by Deli Serdang Regency to the east, south, and west, and the Strait of Malacca to the north.
Medan started as a village called Kampung Medan (Medan Village). Kampung Medan was founded by Guru Patimpus around the 1590s. Because Kampung Medan sits on Tanah Deli (Land of Deli), Kampung Medan is also referred as Medan-Deli. The original location of Kampung Medan is an area where the Deli River meets Babura River.
Based on the diary of the Portuguese merchant in early 16th century, it stated that the name of Medan was actually derived from Medina which is actually a holy city in the western of Saudi Arabia. However, other source indicated that the name of Medan actually came from Indian language "Meiden". One of the Karo-Indonesia dictionary written by Darwin Prinst SH published in 2002 wrote that Medan could also be defined as "recover" or "be better".
The first inhabitants of Medan came from the Batak Karo community. It was not until the Sultan of Aceh, Sultan Iskandar Muda, sent his warlord, Gocah Pahlawan Laksamana Khoja Bintan, to be the Sultanate of Aceh's representative in Tanah Deli, that the Sultanate of Deli started to grow. This growth stimulated growth in both the population and culture of Medan. In the second year reign of Sultan Deli (between 1669-1698), there was a cavalry battle in Medan.
Kesawan in the 1920s
Tirtanadi Tower, Medan Icon
Medan did not experience significant development until the 1860s, when the Dutch colonialists began clearing the land for tobacco plantations. Medan quickly became a center of government and commercial activity, dominating development of Indonesia's western region.
The Dutch governed Tanah Deli from 1658, after Sultan Ismail, ruler of the Kingdom of Siak Sri Indrapura, yielded some of his once-ruled land, Deli, Langkat, and Serdang. In 1915 Medan officially became the capital of North Sumatra Province, and officially a city in 1918.
Medan is governed by a mayor, Drs. H. Abdillah Ak, MBA (period 2005-2010). Medan is divided into 21 districts (kecamatan) and 151 subdistricts (kelurahan).
The city is Indonesia's third most populous after Jakarta and Surabaya, with approximately 2.5 million people.
The city has a mix of communities, reflecting its history. It is famous throughout Indonesia as the home of the Batak people, although, traditionally it is a Melayu Kampung. More recently more and more of the Batak ethnic minority have come to the city to make what was once a minority become a fairly sized community. However, Batak homelands are found throughout North Sumatra. In addition, there is a large ethnic Javanese community, largely made up of the descendants of people transported from Java in the last century as part of the government's transmigration policy, an attempt to relieve the chronic overcrowding of Java.
A highly visible component of Medan's population is the large number of Chinese, who are very active in the business sector. Finally, the city has a sizable community of Tamil descent who are commonly known as keling. A well-known Tamil neighbourhood is Kampung Keling. In addition to Indonesian, Batak Simalungun, Batak Karo, Batak Mandailing, Batak Pak-Pak, Batak Angkola, Batak Toba, Deli Malay, Javanese, Hokkien (Min Nan), Tamil, Acehnese, Minangkabau and English are spoken.