City on the equator — crossing zero degrees in the heart of Borneo
Pontianak is the capital of West Kalimantan province — the only city in the world built precisely on the equator, straddling the line between the northern and southern hemispheres on the Kapuas River in Indonesian Borneo. The Equator Monument (Tugu Khatulistiwa) allows visitors to stand with one foot in each hemisphere, and the city's floating houses on the river and night markets along the waterfront give it a distinct Malay-Chinese-Dayak character.
Pontianak was founded in 1771 by Syarif Abdurrahman, an Arab-Malay sultan who established a kingdom at the confluence of the Kapuas and Landak rivers. Its name — meaning 'ghost of a woman who died in childbirth' in Malay — comes from the banshee-like creatures the founder claimed inhabited the swampy site before he cleared it. The Dutch colonised it in 1779; it became the capital of West Borneo province and later West Kalimantan after Indonesian independence in 1945.