In 2019, President Joko Widodo proclaimed that the new national capital of Indonesia would be built in an area partly in the Kutai Kartanegara Regency and partly in the adjacent Penajam North Paser Regency and that the construction process would set off around 2024.

(e) including the riverine island of Pulau Kumala in the Mahakam River (linked to Tenggarong town by a footbridge).

To visit the forest, visitors can walk along a 64-metre canopy bridge that connects five big Bangkirai trees 30 metres above the ground.

[30] In 2011, East Kalimantan province developed an 18-hectare plot of land for mangrove information and research center in Sepatin village, in Anggana District, as Bali has done.

It will function as a research, exhibition, information, breeding as well as education center on mangroves, especially in the Mahakam Delta.

[31] In early 2015 it was announced that part of Kutai Kartanegara Regency had been selected to be a trial 'smart city', the first in Indonesia, based on the Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town (SST) concept.