Southeast Asia, South Kalimantan

Cempaka, Banjarbaru

Q: Is it legal to collect at Cempaka, Banjarbaru: traditional diamond panning of the Martapura fields?

Gray area. Mining is a local artisanal livelihood, largely informal; visitors are tolerated observers at the pans, arrange a guide from Banjarmasin or Banjarbaru, and do the buying in Martapura's gem market rather than at the pit

Q: What can you find at Cempaka, Banjarbaru: traditional diamond panning of the Martapura fields?

watch traditional diamond and gold panning, buy diamonds, agate and polished stone in Martapura market

Traditional diamond panning of the Martapura fields

Gem locality Documented siteGray area

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What you could find

Reported finds from this ground.

Gold

Agates and jasper

Also reported: buy diamonds.

Photos via Wikimedia Commons: BLM Alaska (Public domain), Teerui (Public domain).

Why this spot

Rockhounding locality: alluvial diamond ground worked since the 15th-century Negara Dipa kingdom; around a thousand miners still wash gravels by hand and pump around Cempaka, feeding Martapura's polishing and trading town

Wikipedia documents roughly 200 miner groups (about 1,000 miners) working Cempaka's diamond ground and names Martapura as the focal point of a diamond industry

Before you go

Hazards noted for this site.

Deep flooded gravel pitsPump machinery, equatorial sun

Keep exploring nearby

More spots in this area.

Check access and collecting rules for each site.

Kalimantan (Borneo) diamond, Martapura10 km away · Gem locality

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Martapura (Cempaka), South Kalimantan, Indonesia10 km away · Gem locality

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Banjarmasin37 km away · Riverbank

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