Indonesia is a vast, huge country. It is difficult to think of it as a single country - it is more like a gigantic tree with branches extending to different parts of India and the Pacific Ocean.
And there are many branches in the Indonesian tree. What we know of Indonesia consists of a total of 17,508 islands stretching 5,150 kilometers (3,200 miles) from east to west in Southeast Asia and Oceania. The sum of these islands covers approximately 1.9194 billion square kilometers, making Indonesia the largest country in terms of surface area. Of these 17,508 islands, only 6,000 are inhabited for the time being.
With so many islands, it is not difficult to see how Indonesia got its name - the name comes from Indonesia, Indo, the Latin name for the country beyond the Indus River and the Greek Nesos, meaning island.
The main Indonesian islands of Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo), Sulawesi and the Indonesian part of New Guinea (known as Irian Jaya or Papua). Click here for a simple guide to the islands of Indonesia.
History and Culture of Indonesia
Indonesia has a rich and fascinating history. Most of the modern Indonesian population is made up of Austronesian people who originally emigrated to Southeast Asia from Taiwan. They arrived in Indonesia around 2000 BC and spread rapidly throughout the archipelago, pushing the Melanesian indigenous people to the Far East regions.
The commercial contracts finally carried out the cultural and religious influences in Indonesia of India, China and continental Southeast Asia. From the seventh century, the mighty kingdom of Srivijaya flourished as a result of Hindu and Buddhist influences were introduced along with goods traded in Indonesia. Srivijaya was one of the earliest kingdoms of India-zado and grew near the coast of Sumatra, which is the hub of a commercial network that reached many parts of the archipelago.
In neighboring Java, the dynasties of Sailendra Buddhish and Hindu Mataram prospered and diminished, leaving behind the remains of great religious monuments such as Borobudur and Prambanan Sailendra Mataram.
The last and most powerful of these early Hindu kingdoms of Java Majapahit was rich, whose influence spread throughout much of Indonesia.
Although the beginning of Islamic influences dating to the 8th and 9th centuries, the earliest evidence of Islamized populations has not been found until the 13th century. At the time in Marco Polo visited the north of Sumatra at the end of the 13th century, the first Islamic countries were established. Other areas of Indonesia gradually adopted Islam and became the dominant religion in Java and Sumatra in the late 16th century. Indonesia is currently the largest Muslim nation in the world.
It was also at this time that a lot of Indonesian spices attracted the attention of European traders. Portuguese merchants first arrived at the commercial port of Malacca in 1511 in search of spices such as cloves, nutmeg and mace. Such herbs, rumored to cure the plague of venereal diseases, literally worth their weight in gold and sought the Portuguese to monopolize the sources of all spices. However, Dutch and British traders followed soon.
Ultimately, the Dutch won, and achieved the spice trade. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) soon established a monopoly of spices that lasted well into the 18th century, to the bankruptcy of VOC and formal dissolution. The Government of the Netherlands intervened and established Indonesia as a Dutch colony. The 19th century saw the Dutch cultivating sugar and coffee on the island of Java, which was soon supplying 3 / 4s of the world's coffee supply.
The Dutch ruled Indonesia for almost three centuries, but by the early 20th century, the Indonesians were more than ready for independence.
It came in the form of the Second World War and the Japanese occupation of Indonesia.
Because the Netherlands was under German occupation, which had little opportunity to defend the colony against the Japanese army, and less than 3 months after Japan's first attack in Borneo, the Japanese left the Dutch troops in Indonesia. Most Indonesians welcomed the Japanese see them as liberators of their Dutch colonial masters, but the optimistic sentiment changed rapidly when it was expected that the Indonesians would endure even more problems for the war effort.
However, the Japanese occupation of Indonesia, which lasted from 1942 to 1945 until the end of World War II, marked a turning point in the history of Indonesia.
You see, the occupation was the first serious challenge to Dutch rule in Indonesia. In addition, unlike the Dutch, the Japanese obtain them from the politicization of Indonesians at the village level - the education, training and assembly of many young Indonesians in the process. By destroying the Dutch colonial regime and facilitating Indonesian nationalism, the Japanese occupation creates the perfect conditions for the activation of the Indonesian Revolution, which has hardly been feasible before World War II.
In a matter of days after the Japanese surrender, Indonesian independence was declared. The Netherlands agreed and a child of 4 years of long diplomatic, military and social struggle guaranteed, ending recognizing the sovereignty of Indonesia in the Netherlands in December 1949.
Indonesia is now a melting pot of more than 300 ethnic groups, each designed with a cultural identity through the centuries and influenced by all the cultures that have been present throughout its rich and varied history in Indonesia: India, Arabic , Chinese and European.
You can find these influences throughout Indonesia. From Java and Bali traditional dances, for example, contain aspects of Hindu culture and mythology. The current legal system is based on the old Dutch Penal Code and some Dutch words have managed to find their way in the Indonesian language. The art and culture of Indonesia shows influences from the Far East, the Middle East and Europe.
It is no wonder that Indonesia's national motto is "Bhinneka Tunggal Ika" - literally, "many, yet one" and a reflection of his belief in "unity in diversification."
Indonesia language
The official language of Indonesia is "Indonesian." There are also several hundred local languages, such as Java or Papuan languages, and most Indonesians speak their ethnic language as their mother tongue and the official Indonesian language.
Indonesia Religion
Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world, but the Indonesian government officially admit five other religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Protestantism, Catholicism and Confucianism.
Indonesia Climate and Geography
Did you know that over 150 of 17,508 Indonesian islands are active volcanoes? Indonesia is one of the most geographically and geologically interesting countries on earth. There are more than 400 volcanic mountains that dot the islands of Indonesia. These islands have a huge impact on both the Australian and Pacific plate tectonics. The Australian plaque is slowly moving slowly to become an image on the smaller plates of the Pacific plate, which moved south. The Indonesian islands stretched between the lines of these two plates.
This situation makes interesting Indonesia one of the changing geological zones in the world. Indonesia is experiencing a three annual vibrations daily, at least one earthquake every day, and a volcanic eruption. Indonesia was also the site of two famous 19th century volcanic eruptions - Tambora and Krakatau - and the epicenter of the Southeast Asian tsunami in 2004.
Indonesia has an area of 1,919 million kilometers and shares square ground borders with Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and East Timor, all of which are rich in unique cultural diversification.
Indonesia climate is tropical - hot and humid - despite the high mountains can become very cold. The year is divided into a wet season and a dry season, but since Indonesia is on the equator, temperatures are not very different from month to month. Coastal areas remain stable around the second half of the upper 20s (low in the mid-1980s Fahrenheit) throughout the year.
