Map of the Riau Islands in Indonesia

The Riau Islands (Indonesian: Kepulauan Riau, abbreviated to Kepri) are an archipelago in Indonesia, located east of Sumatra and south of Singapore.

It is also the name of the new Indonesian province which was created in 2004 which was carved out of Riau province. The province includes all the islands off the Sumatra coast which were previously part of the province, namely Karimun, Riau, Singkep-Lingga, Anambas and Natuna in the South China Sea.

The remainder of Riau province on the Sumatra mainland retains the name Riau province with its capital at Pekanbaru.

Islands

• Bintan — the largest where the provincial capital Tanjung Pinang is located, and home to a large resort area
• Batam — border boomtown with industrial zones, sleazy bars, prostitutes and mistresses
• Karimun — island with busy little port, another pleasure spot for Malaysians and Singaporean males
• Kundur — where you can get away from it all but also a haunt for Malaysian and Singaporean males
• Singkep-Lingga — historic islands which are now off the beaten track
• Anambas — remote archipelago several hundreds of kilometers off the east coast of Malaysia
• Natuna — remote archipelago between Kalimantan and Malaysia

Understand

An archipelago of over 3,000 islands, the province has benefitted greatly from its location - just within 40 mins of Singapore. Its two main islands Batam and Bintan are some of the most developed and affluent parts of Indonesia.

While Bintan and Batam get many visitors from Singapore and Malaysia via Johor Bahru, the rest of the islands in the province are very much off the beaten track, offering endless exciting trips to the adventurous.

The islands have also become a favourite destination for cycling enthusiasts from Singapore.

Talk

Bahasa Indonesia is modeled on the version of Malay which originates from the Riau Islands. In fact, Riau Malay is regarded as the purest form of the Malay language and visitors from Malaysia will find the Malay spoken here very similar to Bahasa Malaysia, which is the version of Malay spoken back home.

Many of the islands, especially Bintan, Karimun and Kundur, have huge Chinese populations who speak the Fujian and Chaozhou dialects as well as Mandarin.

Get in

The Riau Islands are a major gateway into Indonesia because of good ferry links to nearby Singapore and Malaysia. For detailed visa information, please see the Indonesia page.

Many of the seaports in the Riau Islands and the main airport on Batam are visa-free and visa-on-arrival points of entry. Please see the pages for the individual islands or cities on the visa status for a particular port.

By plane

Batam's Hang Nadim Airport (BTH) fields flights from various destinations in Indonesia. Among the airlines which fly to/from Batam are Merpati, Kartika Airlines, AirAsia Indonesia, and Mandala Airlines, providing connections with Jakarta, Medan, Surabaya, Makassar and Banjarmasin.

As for international connections, Riau Airlines operates one flight every Sunday between Batam and Johor Bahru in Malaysia.

Bintan has a smaller airport at Kijang which has several domestic flights, including to the remote Natuna Islands.

By ferry

Ferries are the main way to get to the Riau Islands. Check the individual island or city pages for details.

From Singapore:

Frequent ferries connect Singapore with Batam and Bintan. Besides the two popular islands, ferries also link Singapore with Tanjung Balai on Karimun Island and Tanjung Batu on Kundur Island.

Note that Tanjung Batu is not listed as a visa-free or visa-on-arrival point of entry, although visa-free nationalities seem to not have any problems entering via this port

From Malaysia:

Frequent ferries link Johor Bahru with Batam and Bintan. Ferries also run between Kukup in the south western part of Johor state, and Tanjung Balai on Karimun Island.

From other parts of Indonesia:

Numerous ferries link Sumatra mainland cities such as Pekanbaru, Dumai, Palembang, Kuala Tungkal in Jambi and other smaller ports with Batam, Bintan, Karimun and other island groups. Ships belonging to Indonesia's passenger shipping company Pelni call at Bintan's Kijang port, Batam's Sekupang domestic ferry terminal and the Natuna Islands, linking them with Jakarta, Medan, Pontianak and other major ports.

Get around

Boats are the only practical means of traveling through the archipelago. There are very frequent ferries between Batam and Bintan. There are also frequent ferry links with other islands like Karimun, Singkep and Lingga. The remote Natuna and Anambas islands are linked by infrequent ferries and Pelni boats from Bintan.

There are flights from Batam's airport to the Natuna islands.

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