Bati-Bati District is the gateway to Tanah Laut Regency from the north, fourteen low villages on swamp and rice land beside the boundary with Banjarbaru. Anyone driving south from the provincial side along the Trans-Kalimantan highway meets the regency here first, and the road that carries that traffic, Jalan Ahmad Yani, is also the main street of the district’s daily life.
Where Bati-Bati District Sits
The district covers about 234.75 square kilometres and lies at an average height of roughly twenty-five metres above sea level, though the village heights run from the very low swamp edge to the drier ground in the east. Its neighbours, as the district office describes them, are the city of Banjarbaru to the north, Banjar Regency and Bajuin District to the east, Kurau and Bumi Makmur Districts to the west, and Tambang Ulang District to the south. Bumi Makmur’s own boundary description agrees that Bati-Bati lies on its east side.
The national road that gives the district its character is the Trans-Kalimantan route linking Banjarmasin with Tanah Bumbu and, beyond, East Kalimantan. In Bati-Bati it runs as Jalan Ahmad Yani, and the Km 40 marker stands in the village of Padang. Shops, workshops, schools and the roadside market all face this one strip, and the villages behind it reach it by side roads and canals. The regency page, Tanah Laut Regency, shows how the rest of the regency fans out to the south and west from this entrance.
Fourteen Villages of Bati-Bati
The district contains fourteen villages: Banyu Irang, Bati-Bati, Bentok Darat, Bentok Kampung, Benua Raya, Kait-Kait, Kait-Kait Baru, Liang Anggang, Nusa Indah, Padang, Pandahan, Sambangan, Ujung and Ujung Baru. They differ greatly in size. On the district office’s own table, Bentok Darat covers the most ground and Ujung the least, with Liang Anggang, Bentok Kampung and Nusa Indah among the larger villages and Padang and Bati-Bati itself falling in between.
A rough sorting helps a visitor:
- The road villages, Padang, Bati-Bati, Liang Anggang and Pandahan, have most of the shops, the schools and the roadside trade.
- Benua Raya lies on the western side, towards Kurau, and is a trading village more than a farming one.
- Pandahan sits towards the Bumi Makmur boundary on swamp ground along a river, with Sambangan on its eastern side.
Swamp Land and Water
Most of Bati-Bati stands on wet ground. Pandahan village is a good case: its houses lie on swamp and peaty soil along a river, in a village of about 2,600 people, almost all of them Banjar, with a handful of Javanese and Sundanese households. Its neighbours on the village table are Pengayuan to the north, Liang Anggang to the south, Sambangan to the east and Handil Birayang, a village in Bumi Makmur District, to the west. That western neighbour shows how Bati-Bati and Bumi Makmur merge into one continuous belt of swamp and canal.
Benua Raya, on the west side, makes the same point differently. Its boundaries are Bati-Bati village to the north and east, Gunung Raja to the south and Kurau to the west. Its soil is not very fertile, so many families farm in other villages such as Tanggul, Sungai Pinang, Gunung Raja, Tambak Marun and Kurau, and the village has no plantation land at all. Instead the people of Benua Raya trade. Of the households counted in a village profile from the late 2010s, more worked as traders than as farmers, with 273 households in trade against 246 in farming.
Floodwater is a regular feature. In January 2021 flooding across the regency was worst in Bati-Bati, with floodwater standing in houses across the district, and the road at Pandahan on the Banjarbaru side was cut off for a time. Anyone travelling in the wet season should expect that low spots near the swamp edge can close for a few days.
Swamp Buffalo at Benua Raya
One of the district’s most unusual sights is its herd of swamp buffalo. About three hundred of these animals graze on shared pasture around Benua Raya and Bati-Bati village, and the regency tourism listing counts the buffalo of Benua Raya as a local attraction in its own right. In August 2024 ten female buffalo were donated to the herd to strengthen breeding.
Swamp buffalo suit this country because they wade, graze reeds and tolerate standing water that would trouble cattle. In the tidal and swamp lowlands of South Kalimantan they have long been kept there. The sight of animals moving through shallow water at the swamp edge is the nearest Bati-Bati comes to a wildlife attraction. For readers interested in the wild wetland species that share this kind of ground further inland, the page on peat swamp forests of Borneo describes the larger system.
Roadside Markets and the Fish Trade
Bati-Bati has a lively trading life. A Wednesday market, known locally as Pasar Rabu or Pasar Arba, meets in Bati-Bati village, and a wholesale fish market runs at the same site before dawn. Roving fish sellers from nearby villages, including Benua Raya, buy their stock there and then ride out to sell door to door.
The details are worth knowing because they show how a district economy works at street level. Sellers carry fish in homemade wooden crates or foam boxes, strapped on a wooden rack behind a motorbike, and weigh the catch with small seat-type scales or, if they travel on foot, with wooden beam scales and a one-kilogram stone. The species include patin, nila, mas, prawns and a small salted fish sold by the head. The sellers who describe the trade buy on credit and pay the wholesaler the next day or after the stock has sold, which means the whole trade depends on trust between wholesalers and sellers.
The same district also has a market at Liang Anggang that spreads along the shoulder of Jalan Ahmad Yani, so that traders and passing trucks share the same strip of road. Local officials allow the roadside trade as long as it does not block traffic, and appeal to traders to keep it tidy.
Rubber, Farm Work and Local Income
The household economy of Bati-Bati leans on farming, above all rubber, and on farm labour. Rubber tappers earn modest incomes in a district where income from rubber has often lagged behind the cost of living, and the district’s village development index marks several villages as still developing. People say the district sits between village and town: it has a highway, a police office, a district office and schools, but its residents still work the land.
Alongside the rubber, families keep rice plots on the wetter ground, raise buffalo and run small trading businesses along the highway.
Schools and Services
The district has 28 primary schools and 10 junior secondary schools, together with early-years groups spread across the villages. For upper secondary education there are two main schools, a state senior high school and a state vocational school, both named for Bati-Bati. These two schools take pupils from across the district and from surrounding districts, and for many families they are the nearest option before travelling to Pelaihari or Banjarmasin. The state police sector office for the district stands on Jalan Ahmad Yani in Padang village, the district office is the centre of local administration, and the weekly rhythm of the market gives the district its pace.
Residents with a university degree number a few hundred, but most of them live and work elsewhere, which is a pattern familiar from many rural districts of Kalimantan.
Getting There and Moving Around
Bati-Bati lies on the main road, so reaching it is simple. From Banjarmasin the Trans-Kalimantan highway leads through Banjarbaru and straight into the district. From Pelaihari, the regency seat, the road runs north back to Bati-Bati along the same highway. The page on Pelaihari covers the regency seat, and the one on Banjarbaru covers the city on Bati-Bati’s northern boundary.
Side roads fan out from the highway to the rubber and swamp villages, and many are sealed only for the first stretch. In the wet season some village roads turn soft and a few low crossings flood. A motorbike or a local driver is the practical way to see the interior villages, and the highway itself carries heavy trucks, so travellers on foot or bicycle should keep clear of the shoulder.
For travel planning across the wider province, the page on getting around Kalimantan sets out what distances and road conditions are like, and the neighbouring coastal district, Kurau District, borders Benua Raya on the west.
A Practical Way to See Bati-Bati
- Stop in Padang village at the Km 40 marker and walk part of Jalan Ahmad Yani to see how the highway also serves as the district’s street.
- Time a visit for a Wednesday morning, when the market in Bati-Bati village is at its busiest.
- Drive west to Benua Raya to look for the buffalo on the shared pasture.
- Take a side road into Pandahan to see houses on swamp ground beside a river.
- Leave extra time in the wet season, when low crossings may close.
The district is a place to be seen at ground level rather than ticked off a list. It rewards a slow visit with a few clear impressions: a national road lined with trade, swamp villages on the other side of it, and a herd of buffalo grazing in shallow water.
Related guides: Bajuin District: Nine Villages, Waterfall and Forest Land, Bumi Makmur District: Tidal Rice Land and Fishing Villages.