award in the category of large city for the seventh consecutive time. Demographics Ethnicities Pekanbaru is the third most populous city on Sumatra Island after Medan and Palembang, with a population of 983,356 according to the official Census for 2020. The city is highly urbanised, drawing many of its people from the neighbouring province of West Sumatra. Since many centuries ago, Pekanbaru is one of the Minangkabau migration area. After World War II, the number of Minangkabau people migrating to Pekanbaru surged, nearly doubling between the years 1943 and 1961. Many Minang in Pekanbaru have lived there for generations and has since assimilated into the Malay community. In addition to the Minangkabau, the Riau Malays natives are the second largest ethnic group in Pekanbaru, making up 30% of the population. The Javanese, Batak, and Tionghoa are the other main ethnic groups inhabiting Pekanbaru. Religions The pluralism surrounding the city can be reflected by the variety of religions and freedom of belief among the people in Pekanbaru. Islam is the majority religion in this city, followed by Christianity (Protestantism and Catholic) as well as Buddhism and small percentage of Hinduism and Confucianism. Each religion in this city is represented by the presence of the religion's respective worship places, such as An-Nur Great Mosque and Pekanbaru Central Mosque (Masjid Raya Pekanbaru) for the Muslim community, St. Maria A Fatima Church and St. Paulus Church for the Catholic community, Huria Kristen Batak Protestan Church for the Protestant community as well as Vihara Dhamma Metta Arama, Vihara Dharma Loka and Vihara Vimala Virya for the Buddhist community and Kwan Tee Kong Bio (Vihara Satya Dharma) and Vihara Sasana Loka for Confucianist community and Pura Agung Jagatnatha for the Hindu community in Pekanbaru. Languages Indonesian is the official language that is spoken by the citizens of Pekanbaru. For informal use, Pekanbaru people generally use Minangkabau language in their economic and daily activities, especially in the market area. In addition the Malay languages and Javanese are also widely spoken because of the large population of Malays and Javanese people in Pekanbaru. Hokkien is mainly spoken by Tionghoa as most of the Chinese Indonesian in Pekanbaru belong to the Hokkien people. In fact, many Chinese Indonesian in Pekanbaru come from other regions in Riau such as Selat Panjang, Bengkalis and Siak, along with the Chinese Indonesian who are originally from Pekanbaru itself. Moreover, many Chinese Indonesian especially