Kelurahan Is Not an Urban Village

Addresses look like the easy part of a document. They are short, they are mostly names, and nobody argues about them. And yet a single Indonesian address hides a surprising number of decisions.

Here is the format I use in my own translations. Take an address in this shape (the names are invented):

Jl. Kenanga No. 7 RT.002 RW.005, Kel. X, Kec. Y, Kota Z, Provinsi Jawa Barat

In my English it becomes:

Jalan Kenanga No. 7 RT 002 RW 005, X Sub-District, Y District, Z City, West Java Province

Units get translated, names do not

The administrative units have workable English labels. Kelurahan is a Sub-District. Kecamatan is a District. Kota is a City, Kabupaten a Regency, Desa a Village, and Provinsi a Province. The names themselves stay as they are. Bogor Timur stays Bogor Timur; it does not become East Bogor. Nobody will find East Bogor on a form.

Jalan, in full

"Jl." becomes "Jalan". I do not translate it as Street. A courier or an embassy officer comparing the translation with the original will look for "Jalan Kenanga", and that is what they should find.

RT and RW stay

RT and RW are neighbourhood units with no real English equivalent. I could write "Neighbourhood Unit 002, Community Unit 005", and some translators do. But those labels help nobody find anything, and they make a short address long. So I keep RT and RW, and I tidy the punctuation: "RT.002, RW.005" becomes "RT 002 RW 005".

Do not add a country

If the source address says Indonesia, my English says Indonesia. If it does not, I do not add it. It is tempting to "help" the reader, but an official translation should not contain information the original does not.

Why the title

Kelurahan is sometimes translated as "Urban Village". I understand why: a kelurahan is the urban counterpart of a desa. But Sub-District sits more naturally beside District, City and Province in English, so it is the label I use.

One more thing. All of this is my house style. When I proofread someone else's translation, I do not impose it. Recently I reviewed a colleague's civil-registry certificate and left their address exactly as written, with no "Indonesia" appended and their abbreviations intact. The one change I did make in that area was "Urban Village" to "Sub-District". Style is a preference. A unit label that misleads the reader is an error.