At the 2020 census, Batam had a population of 1,196,396 inhabitants. The population was increasing rapidly, with a population growth rate of more than 8% per year between 2001 and 2012, but the increase has subsequently slowed. It is now growing by about 20,000 persons per year
Ethnicity Today, Batam is inhabited by a heterogeneous mixture of people due to labor migration and desire to be close to
Singapore; it is very diverse, two-thirds of the population are migrants. The predominant ethnicities are
Malays,
Javanese,
Batak,
Minangkabau, and
Chinese. The indigenous people of Batam who are related to the Malays are the
Orang Laut who are nomads who depend on the sea for their livelihood and the Orang Darat who live nomadically in the interior forests of
Rempang whose population is threatened with extinction. As a municipality it exemplifies the national motto of "
Bhinneka Tunggal Ika" (Unity in Diversity). The location of Batam, which is close to
Singapore, is conducive to the development of
economic,
sociopolitical, and
cultural aspects of the
local community.
Religion Islam is the majority religion in Batam, followed by
Christianity,
Buddhism and
Hinduism. Most of those who follow
Islam are
Javanese,
Malays and
Minangkabaus. The Great Mosque of Batam, located in the city center adjacent to the main square, the mayor's office and the provincial Parliament, is an important symbol of Islamic religious life in Batam. Christianity is also widely embraced by the people of Batam, especially those from the
Batak and
Nias people of North Sumatra (Protestantism) and migrants from
Flores island in
Nusa Tenggara Timur province,
East Indonesia (Roman Catholicism) as well as Javanese Catholics from
Yogyakarta and
Central Java who emigrated to this province along with a minority of Chinese Indonesians and internal migrant
Indian Indonesians from Medan,
North Sumatra. The majority of the
Chinese population practises
Buddhism. A number of
Viharas are located in Batam, of which Vihara Duta Maitreya is one of the most frequented, and is the largest
Vihara in
Southeast Asia with an area of 4.5 hectares. In addition, Hinduism in practiced by a quarter of its small ethnic Indian Indonesian minority as well as by its
Balinese emigrant minority ethnic populace who migrated from the tourist island of
Bali and are resident for business purposes in this city.
Language Indonesian is the common lingua franca of Batam in daily use. Other languages such as local
Malay (similar to the
Malaysian standard as spoken in neighbouring
Malaysia and
Singapore) since both varieties coexist with each other as the former is the official and national language widely spoken and used like in the rest of Indonesia whilst the latter is a trade language and widely spoken by
Malaysian Malay expatriates from
Johor,
Malaysia as well as
Malay Singaporeans from Singapore who reside for business purposes and also for
historical purposes. Other ethnic minority languages such as
Minangkabau,
Batak,
Javanese and
Chinese ethnic dialects like
Hokkien,
Cantonese,
Teochew and
Hainanese are also widely used owing to the city's ethnolinguistic diversity in addition to the dominant ethnic Malay populace. The usage of
Mandarin and
English are trending due to
Singaporean influence, especially by expatriates living in Batam. == Economy ==