Sukabumi is a city surrounded by the regency of the same name in the southern foothills of Mount Gede Pangrango in West Java, about 80km south of the national capital, Jakarta. At an altitude of approximately 600m, the city is a minor hill station resort, with a cooler climate than the surrounding lowlands. Sukabumi is also a destination for whitewater rafting with so many waterfalls and also night caving at Buni Ayu. Rubber production is a major industry in the area.

In Dutch colonial times, Sukabumi was the site of the colonial police academy. In early 2005, Sukabumi Regency became the first place in Indonesia that polio was reported in ten years, the beginning of a nationwide outbreak of the disease which had been believed to be eradicated in the country.

During the Japanese occupation of Indonesia during the Second World War, the Japanese had created a strategic garrison in Ujung Genteng, part of the South Sukabumi Regency. Remains of the harbor and lookout towers at the end of this peninsula are still in place, along with the caves that the Japanese lived and died in towards the end of the war..