Why it looks like this

The capital of Central Java splits by altitude. 'Lower Semarang' holds the port, the Chinese quarter and Kota Lama — the Dutch old town whose domed church and trading offices earned it the nickname 'Little Netherlands'. 'Upper Semarang' climbs the Candi hills, where the colonial elite built to escape the heat and floods.

The lower city is losing height: land subsidence, among the fastest in the world, pulls parts of the coast down several centimetres each year, and tidal flooding (rob) regularly enters the streets — a map being slowly reclaimed by the sea it grew from.