Sumbawa Besar

Sumbawa Besar is one of the most populated towns beside Bima and Dompu in the Indonesian island of Sumbawa. It is the capital city of the island and of the Sumbawa Regency of the province of West Nusa Tenggara.


The slogan of the town is BESAR which can mean big in Indonesian. However, this slogan has been used an acronym for:
B Bersih (Clean),
E Elok (Beautiful),
S Sehat (Healthy),
A Aman (Safe),
R Rapi (Proper).

Sumbawa Besar Coral at moyo Island  By : http://www.visualphotos.com

Indonesian is widely spoken in Sumbawa  Besar  with some local languages such as Samawa and Balinese (spoken by Balinese people that moved to Sumbawa  Besar ).
Transportation

Public transportation in Sumbawa  Besar  may include bemo, dokar, and becak.
There are two lines of bemo there, Blue bemo and Yellow bemo. Each serves different routes around the city but both pass the most crowded street in the city, Jalan Kartini. Jalan Kartini may be considered as the centre of the city since local merchants are concentrated in this area and youngsters usually hang out around the water fountain in the middle of the street.



There is one small airport named Bandar Udara Brangbiji that serves some small flights to and from Mataram. However, due to the limited number of passengers using these flight services, the flight schedules have been limited to once or twice a week. Mainly, the flights are served by Merpati Airways.




Tourism in Sumbawa BESAR or Sumbawa has not been promoted by the government. However, thanks to that, Sumbawa has really nice untouched beaches that many tourists, local, national or international, have enjoyed.
There are several small hotels / motels in Sumbawa  Besar . They may include Hotel Tambora, Hotel Suci, etc. The rate per night varies but usually is cheap ranging from Rp. 50,000 to Rp. 100,000 (US$6 – 13).

Sumbawa  Besar  has some public schools and so far only one private Catholic school.

high school students participated in the cultural week

A university was built in 1998 named Universitas Samawa. The tuition fee is Rp. 400,000 / year. There are 694 students. Study programs include Management Finance and Banking (D3), Mechanical Engineering (D3), Civil Engineering (D3 & S1), Physics, Agronomy, Administration, Economy, Food Science, and Education (S1).