Abstrack:
Urbanization is one of the demographic issues that must be overcomed. High urbanization rate, especially for youth, would cause various problems since youths play an important role in their society. On the other hand, people sometimes ignore their local potency which can give solution to the problem. This study is aimed to determine the role of youth through maritime sector empowerment as an effort in controlling urbanization rate and its implications towards regional economic resilience in Tepus subdistrict of Gunungkidul. There are two main issues on this study. They are the role of youth through empowerment in maritime sectors and the implications towards regional economic resilience. This research is descriptive qualitative research where data were managed by reduction, classification, presentation and verification processes. The data are classified into primary and secondary data. The primary data was collected through observations, interviews with several informants and supported by simple quesionnaire. Whereas, secondary data were collected by library research and documentation. The results of this researcht showed that; (1) youth plays an important role in controlling urbanization rate by working in maritime sectors. It can be seen from the number of youths who work in maritime sectors and their perceptions about the job compared to urbanization and (2) youth empowerment in maritime sectora gives positive impact in strengthening regional economic resilience in Tepus Subdistrict. The empowerment of youth is able to give income and reduce the unemployeement. It would support the economic growth and youth productivity. However, there are some obstacles in the empowering process. They are nature factor, youth resource quality factor, and infrastructure factor.