Implementation of the K-Means Method for Clustering Regency/City in North Sumatra based on Poverty Indicators

Poverty has many negative effects on people's lives, such as difficulty meeting basic needs, limited access to adequate health and education services, and limited economic opportunities. North Sumatra faces significant poverty problems as one of the largest provinces in Indonesia. This requires special attention and a thorough investigation. Reducing poverty is a very important issue for the government of North Sumatra Province. Poverty-alleviation strategies can no longer be applied uniformly. Instead, it is necessary to consider all the factors that cause poverty in each region. This means that the approach that must be given to each regency or city based on its poverty level must be adjusted. To overcome this problem, clustering must be carried out to identify areas with different levels of welfare. The aim of this research is to cluster regencies and cities in North Sumatra Province using the K-means method based on poverty indicator variables. This research only uses three poverty indicators: gross regional domestic product, human development index, and unemployment rate. The optimal number of clusters is determined based on the results of the silhouette coefficient. The research method begins with dataset collection, exploratory data analysis, data preprocessing, and k-means clustering. The value k = 6 produces a silhouette coefficient of 0.4135. This research produced six regency/city clusters. Cluster 1 consists of 11 regencies and 1 city; cluster 2 consists of 1 regency and 2 cities; cluster 3 consists of 4 regencies; cluster 4 consists of 7 regencies; cluster 5 consists of 4 cities; and cluster 6 consists of 2 regencies and 1 city. The variables gross regional domestic product, human development index, and unemployment rate have a big influence on the cluster results. This will enable the government to adopt policies to tackle poverty quickly and effectively.