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Vehicle registration plates of Indonesia

Indonesia vehicle license plates

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 16, 2026
Entity authorityQ1421674 ↗
Source-derived summary

Motorized vehicles in Indonesia are required to have registration plates, which must be displayed both at the front and back of the vehicles. The issuing of number plates is regulated and administered by SAMSAT (Indonesian: Sistem Administrasi Manunggal Satu Atap, lit. 'One-stop Administration Services Office'), which is a collaboration between the Indonesian National Police, provincial offices of regional revenue, and the national mandatory vehicle insurance operator Jasa Raharja.

Registration area codes

The lettering convention denoting the area of registration is a legacy of the Dutch colonial era and does not reflect the current regional divisions of the country into provinces. They follow the old system of Dutch Karesidenan or residencies lettering systems, which were adopted in the 1920s, and the Territorial Police system which was abolished in 2010.

The list of area codes are:

Several areas provide license plates for non-motorized transport vehicles. In Yogyakarta, YB is used for rickshaws. A white-on-blue license plate with area code SB is issued for rickshaws operating in the city of Surabaya. In Banjarmasin, rickshaws operating in the city are issued with plate using a unique format, XXXX BS.

Defunct area codes

There were some area codes that are no longer in use. These include:

BR – ex Borneo Residency, Western region

DF – East Timor

DS – Papua, prior to 2016.

History

Colonial era

Vehicle registration plates were first introduced in the Dutch East Indies in 1900.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Vehicle registration plates of Indonesia” is indonesia vehicle license plates. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Vehicle, registration and plates, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2010, 2016, 1900—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Vehicle, registration and plates is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “indonesia vehicle license plates” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1421674. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2010, 2016 and 1900.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Vehicle registration plates of Indonesia”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Vehicle registration plates of Indonesia primary sources, Vehicle registration plates of Indonesia archive and Vehicle research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Vehicle registration plates of Indonesia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.