Selat Panjang

Selat Panjang
Town
Other transcription(s)
• Chinese	石叻班让
• Jawi	سلاتفنجاغ
Night streetview of Selat Panjang
Country	Indonesia
Province	Riau
Area
• Total	849.50 km2 (327.99 sq mi)
Population (2010)
• Total	76,763
• Density	90.4/km2 (234/sq mi)
Time zone	WIB (UTC+7)
• Summer (DST)	Not observed (UTC)

Selat Panjang (Jawi: سلاتفنجاغ‎; simplified Chinese: 石叻班让; traditional Chinese: 石叻班讓; pinyin: shílèbānràng) is the capital of Kepulauan Meranti Regency, which is part of the province of Riau in Indonesia. The regency is a new regency in Riau province which was established in 2009 and it has been separated from Bengkalis Regency. Tebing Tinggi island is separated by a narrow channel from Sumatra, and is west of Singapore across the Strait of Malacca.

Selat Panjang has a dense population of about 120,000 people. The largest ethnic group is Chinese, almost all Buddhist and Taoism in belief, but 37% of the population are ethnic Malay. There are also smaller ethnic groups such as Tamils, Minangkabau and Javanese.

Thus, nowadays many Chinese Indonesians that are originally from Selatpanjang have moved to other regions in order to make a better living with the prominent place like Medan, Pekanbaru, Batam, Bengkalis and Tanjung Balai Karimun have been their new place of living. Nevertheless, every Chinese New Year in Selatpanjang, many of those who have moved away would return in order to celebrate the Chinese New Year although they have lived in other regions or cities for decades.