In Indonesia, village or subdistrict is the fourth-level subdivision underneath a district, regency/city, and province. There are a number of names and types for villages in Indonesia, with desa being the most used for regencies and kelurahan for cities. According to the 2019 report by the Ministry of Home Affairs, there are 8,488 urban villages and 74,953 rural villages in Indonesia.
Kelurahan is an urban villageterminology used in cities as well as a few part of regencies. It is commonly translated to English as subdistrict. The leader of kelurahan is called lurah. A lurah is a civil servantappointed by the district head. According to the Regulation of the Minister of Home AffairsNumber 31 of 2006, a kelurahan can be created with the following criteria:
Java and Bali: having at least 4,500 residents or 900 families within an area of at least 3 km².
Sumatra and Sulawesi: having at least 2,000 residents or 400 families within an area of at least 5 km².
A kelurahan must have a government office, an established transportation network, adequate communication facilities, and public facilities. If it no longer meets the above conditions can be abolished or combined with other kelurahans based on the results of research and studies conducted by the city/regency government.
''Desa''
Desa is a rural village terminology used in majority of regencies in Indonesia. However, several provinces have adopted their own terminology for their traditional villages. The leader of a desa does not have a civil servant status and is chosen by the public through an election. According to the Law Number 6 of 2014, desa and desa adat are legal community units that have territorial boundaries that are authorised to regulate and administer government affairs, community interests based on community initiatives, original rights, and/or traditional rights recognized and respected in the government system of the UnitaryRepublic of Indonesia. Variations of desa terminology in Indonesia include:
In Bali, there are two forms of desa, i.e. desa dinas and desa adat. Desa dinas deals with administrative functions, while desa adat deals with religious and cultural functions.
