Indonesia

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Republic of Indonesia
Republik Indonesia

Flag

National emblem

Motto: "Bhinneka Tunggal Ika" (Old Javanese)

"Unity in Diversity"
National ideology: Pancasila[1][2]
Anthem: Indonesia Raya
Great Indonesia
MENU0:00
Location of Indonesia (green)in ASEAN (dark grey) [Legend]
Location of Indonesia (green)
in ASEAN (dark grey) [Legend]
Capital
and largest city

Jakarta

610.5S 10649.7E
Official languages Indonesian
Religion

Official recognition:[a]

Islam
Protestantism
Catholicism
Hinduism
Buddhism
Confucianism
Demonym

Indonesian

Government Unitary presidential constitutional republic

President

Vice-President

Legislature

Joko Widodo
Jusuf Kalla

People's Consultative Assembly

Upper house Regional Representative Council

Lower house People's Representative Council

Independence
-

Declared

17 August 1945 (de jure)

Acknowledged

27 December 1949 (from Netherlands)

Area
-

Land 1,904,569 km2 (15th)

735,358 sq mi
-

Water (%)

4.85

Population
-

2015 estimate

255,461,700[3]

2011 census 237,424,363[4] (4th)

Density

124.66/km2 (84th)

322.87/sq mi
GDP (PPP)

2015 estimate

Total $2.840 trillion[4] (8th)

Per capita

GDP (nominal)

$11,135[4] (102nd)
2015 estimate

Total $895.677 billion[4] (16th)

Per capita

$3,511[4] (117th)

Gini (2010) 35.6[5]

medium
HDI (2013)

Steady 0.684[6]

medium 108th
Currency

Indonesian rupiah (Rp) (IDR)

Time zone
-

various (UTC+7 - +9)

Summer (DST)

Drives on the

not observed (UTC+7 - +9)

left

Calling code +62

ISO 3166 code

ID

Internet TLD .id

a.
^a The government officially recognizes only six religions: Islam,
Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism.[7]
Indonesia (Listeni/ndni/ in-d-nee-zh or /ndonizi/ in-doh-nee-zee-),
officially the Republic of Indonesia (Indonesian: Republik Indonesia Indonesian
pronunciation: [rpublik ndonesia]), is a sovereign state in Southeast Asia.

Indonesia is an archipelago comprising thousands of islands.[8] With an

estimated total population of over 255 million people, Indonesia is the world's
fourth-most-populous country. Indonesia's republican form of government
comprises an elected legislature and president. It encompasses 34 provinces, of
which five have Special Administrative status. The nation's capital city is Jakarta.
The country shares land borders with Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and
Malaysia. Other neighbouring countries include Singapore, the Philippines,
Australia, Palau, and the Indian territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Indonesia is a founding member of ASEAN and a member of the G-20 major
economies. The Indonesian economy is the world's 16th largest by nominal GDP
and the 8th largest by GDP at PPP.

The Indonesian archipelago has been an important trade region since at least the
7th century, when Srivijaya and then later Majapahit traded with China and India.
Local rulers gradually absorbed foreign cultural, religious and political models
from the early centuries CE, and Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms flourished.
Indonesian history has been influenced by foreign powers drawn to its natural
resources. Muslim traders brought the now-dominant Islam, while European
powers brought Christianity and fought one another to monopolise trade in the
Spice Islands of Maluku during the Age of Discovery. Following three and a half
centuries of Dutch colonialism, at times interrupted by Portuguese, French and
British rule, Indonesia secured its independence after World War II. Indonesia's
history has since been turbulent, with challenges posed by natural disasters,
mass slaughter, corruption, separatism, a democratisation process, and periods
of rapid economic change.

Indonesia consists of hundreds of distinct native ethnic and linguistic groups. The
largest and politically dominant ethnic group are the Javanese. A shared
identity has developed, defined by a national language, ethnic diversity, religious
pluralism within a majority Muslim population, and a history of colonialism and
rebellion against it. Indonesia's national motto, "Bhinneka Tunggal Ika" ("Unity in
Diversity" literally, "many, yet one"), articulates the diversity that shapes the
country. Despite its large population and densely populated regions, Indonesia
has vast areas of wilderness that support the world's second highest level of
biodiversity. The country has abundant natural resources, yet poverty remains
widespread.[9][10]

Contents [hide]
1 Etymology
2 History
3 Government and politics
4 Foreign relations and military
5 Administrative divisions
6 Geography
7 Biota and environment
8 Economy
9 Demographics
9.1 Ethnicity
9.2 Religion
9.3 Education
9.4 Cities and towns
10 Language
11 Sports
12 Culture
13 See also
14 Notes
15 References
16 External links

Etymology
Further information: Names of Indonesia
The name Indonesia derives from the Greek words Inds and nsos, meaning
"Indian island".[11] The name dates to the 18th century, far predating the
formation of independent Indonesia.[12] In 1850, George Windsor Earl, an
English ethnologist, proposed the terms Indunesians and, his preference,
Malayunesians for the inhabitants of the "Indian Archipelago or Malayan
Archipelago".[13] In the same publication, a student of Earl's, James Richardson
Logan, used Indonesia as a synonym for Indian Archipelago.[14][15] However,
Dutch academics writing in East Indies publications were reluctant to use
Indonesia. Instead, they used the terms Malay Archipelago (Maleische Archipel);
the Netherlands East Indies (Nederlandsch Oost Indi), popularly Indi; the East
(de Oost); and Insulinde.[16]

After 1900, the name Indonesia became more common in academic circles
outside the Netherlands, and Indonesian nationalist groups adopted it for
political expression.[16] Adolf Bastian, of the University of Berlin, popularised the
name through his book Indonesien oder die Inseln des Malayischen Archipels,
18841894. The first Indonesian scholar to use the name was Suwardi
Suryaningrat (Ki Hajar Dewantara), when he established a press bureau in the
Netherlands with the name Indonesisch Pers-bureau in 1913.[12]

History
Main article: History of Indonesia

A Borobudur ship carved on Borobudur, c. 800 CE. Indonesian outrigger boats

may have made trade voyages to the east coast of Africa as early as the 1st
century CE.[17]
Fossils and the remains of tools show that the Indonesian archipelago was
inhabited by Homo erectus, popularly known as "Java Man", between 1.5 million
years ago and as recently as 35,000 years ago.[18][19][20] Homo sapiens
reached the region by around 45,000 years ago.[21] In 2011 evidence was
uncovered in neighbouring East Timor showing that 42,000 years ago these early
settlers were catching and consuming large numbers of big deep sea fish such as
tuna,[22] and that they had the technology needed to make ocean crossings to
reach Australia and other islands.

Austronesian peoples, who form the majority of the modern population, migrated
to South East Asia from Taiwan. They arrived in Indonesia around 2000 BCE, and

as they spread through the archipelago, pushed the indigenous Melanesian

peoples to the far eastern regions.[23] Ideal agricultural conditions, and the
mastering of wet-field rice cultivation as early as the 8th century BCE,[24]
allowed villages, towns, and small kingdoms to flourish by the 1st century CE.
Indonesia's strategic sea-lane position fostered inter-island and international
trade, including links with Indian kingdoms and China, which were established
several centuries BCE.[25] Trade has since fundamentally shaped Indonesian
history.[26][27]

The nutmeg plant is native to Indonesia's Banda Islands. Once one of the world's
most valuable commodities, it drew the first European colonial powers to
Indonesia.
Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism arrived in Indonesia in the 4th and 5th
century, as trade with India intensified under the southern Indian Pallava
dynasty.[28] This is evidenced in the Kutai, Tarumanagara, and Kantoli kingdoms
of the period. From the 7th century, the powerful Srivijaya naval kingdom
flourished as a result of trade and the influences of Hinduism and Buddhism that
were imported with it.[29][30] Between the 8th and 10th centuries, the
agricultural Buddhist Sailendra and Hindu Mataram dynasties thrived and
declined in inland Java, leaving grand religious monuments such as Sailendra's
Borobudur and Mataram's Prambanan. The Hindu Majapahit kingdom was
founded in eastern Java in the late 13th century, and under Gajah Mada, its
influence stretched over much of Indonesia.[31]

Although Muslim traders first travelled through Southeast Asia early in the
Islamic era, the earliest evidence of Islamised populations in Indonesia dates to
the 13th century in northern Sumatra.[32] Other Indonesian areas gradually
adopted Islam, and it was the dominant religion in Java and Sumatra by the end
of the 16th century. For the most part, Islam overlaid and mixed with existing
cultural and religious influences, which shaped the predominant form of Islam in
Indonesia, particularly in Java.[33] The first regular contact between Europeans
and the peoples of Indonesia began in 1512, when Portuguese traders, led by
Francisco Serro, sought to monopolise the sources of nutmeg, cloves, and
cubeb pepper in Maluku.[34] Dutch and British traders followed. In 1602 the
Dutch established the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and became the
dominant European power. Following bankruptcy, the VOC was formally dissolved
in 1800, and the government of the Netherlands established the Dutch East
Indies as a nationalised colony.[35]

Sukarno, Indonesia's founding President.

For most of the colonial period, Dutch control over the archipelago was tenuous
outside of coastal strongholds; only in the early 20th century did Dutch
dominance extend to what was to become Indonesia's present boundaries.[36]
Japanese occupation during the Second World War ended Dutch rule[37][38] and
encouraged the previously suppressed Indonesian independence movement.[39]
A later UN report stated that four million people died in Indonesia as a result of
the Japanese occupation.[40] Two days after the surrender of Japan in August
1945, Sukarno, an influential nationalist leader, declared independence and was
appointed President.[41][42][43] The Netherlands tried to reestablish their rule,
and the resulting conflict ended in December 1949, when in the face of
international pressure, the Dutch formally recognised Indonesian
independence[42][44] with the exception of the Dutch territory of West New
Guinea, which was incorporated into Indonesia following the 1962 New York
Agreement, and the UN-mandated Act of Free Choice of 1969[45] which was
questionable and has resulted in a longtime independence movement.[46]

Sukarno moved Indonesia from democracy towards authoritarianism, and

maintained his power base by balancing the opposing forces of the military and
the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI).[47] An attempted coup on 30 September
1965 was countered by the army, who led a violent anti-communist purge,
during which the PKI was blamed for the coup and effectively destroyed.[48][49]
[50] Around 500,000 people are estimated to have been killed.[51][52] The head
of the military, General Suharto, outmaneuvered the politically weakened
Sukarno and was formally appointed president in March 1968. His New Order
administration[53] was supported by the US government,[54][55][56] and
encouraged foreign direct investment in Indonesia, which was a major factor in
the subsequent three decades of substantial economic growth. However, the
authoritarian "New Order" was widely accused of corruption and suppression of
political opposition.[37][57][58]

Indonesia was the country hardest hit by the late 1990s Asian financial crisis.[59]
This led to popular protest against the New Order which led to Suharto's
resignation in May 1998.[60] In 1999, East Timor voted to secede from Indonesia,
after a twenty-five-year military occupation that was marked by international
condemnation of repression of the East Timorese.[61] Since Suharto's
resignation, a strengthening of democratic processes has included a regional
autonomy program, and the first direct presidential election in 2004. Political and
economic instability, social unrest, corruption, and terrorism slowed progress;
however, in the last five years the economy has performed strongly. Although
relations among different religious and ethnic groups are largely harmonious,
sectarian discontent and violence have persisted.[62] A political settlement to an
armed separatist conflict in Aceh was achieved in 2005.[63] Joko Widodo was
elected as President in 2014 Indonesian presidential election.