Mountain · Indonesia
Mount Bromo
Mount Bromo is a small smoking volcano in East Java that stands alone in a grey plain of ash, the Sea of Sand inside the Tengger caldera. Its last eruption was in December 2023.
Picture credit: Hugo van den Bos (CC BY 2.0) · Harri J (CC BY 2.0) · Riza Nugraha ? (CC BY 2.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is Mount Bromo?
Mount Bromo is part of the Tengger massif (East Java).
You will find it in: Indonesia.
Summit: 7.942° S, 112.950° E
The story behind it
Bromo is one of several cones inside the huge Tengger caldera in East Java, and it is not the tallest of them, but it is by far the busiest. The flat floor all around is covered in grey volcanic sand, the Segara Wedi or "Sea of Sand", protected as a nature reserve since 1919. The name Bromo comes from the Javanese way of saying Brahma, a Hindu god of creation. A staircase of concrete steps climbs the ash slope to the crater rim, where you can look straight down into the smoking hole. Every year, on the fourteenth day of the month of Kasada in the Tengger calendar, the Tenggerese people walk up for the Yadnya Kasada festival and throw offerings into the crater: fruit, vegetables, rice, flowers and livestock. Sometimes people climb down the inner slope to catch the offerings, which are said to bring good luck. The custom is explained by a legend from the time of the Majapahit empire, about Roro Anteng and her husband, who were granted many children on one hard condition.
Find it on the globe
Mount Bromo is there as a small peak with its own shape — a horn, a ridge, a volcano — standing on the surface. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
How high is Mount Bromo?
2 329 metres. He is not even the highest cone of his own massif, but he is the most active one, and the crater rim is reachable on foot in an hour.
Where is Mount Bromo?
In East Java, Indonesia, inside the Tengger caldera, in the national park named after Bromo, Tengger and Semeru.
Why do people throw fruit into the crater?
Because of Yadnya Kasada, the Tenggerese festival held every year on the fourteenth day of the month of Kasada. Fruit, vegetables, rice, flowers and livestock go into the crater as thanks for a good harvest.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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