17 August, the day Sukarno read the proclamation in 1945. Every neighbourhood holds its own games in the street — the greased pole, the cracker-eating race — and the flag ceremony is at the palace.
17 August, the day Sukarno read the proclamation in 1945. Indonesians call the day simply tujuh belasan, the seventeenth.
The Phala almanac gives the exact day for your own city; the lunar and solar rules above are what it computes from.
Sukarno and Hatta read a two-sentence proclamation from the front of a house in Jakarta two days after the Japanese surrender. The Dutch did not accept it and the war of independence ran another four years.
The flag raised that morning was sewn by Sukarno's wife Fatmawati from cotton she was given; the original is brought out at the palace each year.
The Phala almanac shows this day where it falls for your own city — sunrise, tithi and all five limbs, anywhere on earth. See how the almanac works →
