An alun-alun (Javanese, correctly hyphenated but occurs occasionally without hyphen; also found as aloen-aloen, aloon aloon, and erroneously alon-alon) or Square (English) is a large, central, open lawn square common to villages, towns and cities in Indonesia.
Commonly, alun-alun in modern-day Indonesia refers only to the two large open squares of kraton palace compounds.
Each kraton has two alun-alun: the most important and northern alun-alun lor and the less important and commonly smaller southern alun-alun kidul. The court of Pakubuwana in Surakarta is unique as it incorporates the alun-alun kidul within the defensive wall of the kraton proper.[1]
- ^ Studies in Indonesian archaeology, By Willem F Stutterheim, Netherlands Institute for International Cultural Relations and M. Nijhoff 1956, 158 pp, p. 102