Population: 221,932,000 Capital: Jakarta; 13,194,000 Area: 1,922,570 square kilometers (742,308 square miles) Language: Bahasa Indonesia, English, Dutch, Javanese, and other local dialects Religion: Muslim, Protestant, Roman Catholic, Hindu, Buddhist Currency: Indonesian rupiah Life Expectancy: 68 GDP per Capita: U.S. $3,100 Literacy Percent: 89 Economy Industry: Petroleum and natural gas; textiles, apparel, and footwear; mining, cement, chemical fertilizers Agriculture: Rice, cassava (tapioca), peanuts, rubber; poultry Exports: Oil and gas, electrical appliances, plywood, textiles, rubber Indonesia is a vast equatorial archipelago of 17,000 islands extending 5,150 kilometers (3,200 miles) east to west, between the Indian and Pacific Oceans in Southeast Asia. The largest islands are Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo), Sulawesi, and the Indonesian part of New Guinea (known as Papua or Irian Jaya). Islands are mountainous with dense rain forests, and some have active volcanoes. Most of the smaller islands belong to larger groups, like the Moluccas (Spice Islands). Indonesia, the worlds fourth most populous nation, is 86 percent Muslim—and the largest Islamic country, though it is a secular state. Indonesians are separated by seas and clustered on islands. The largest cluster is on Java, with some 130 million inhabitants (60 percent of the countrys population) on an island the size of New York State. Sumatra, much larger than Java, has less than a third of its people. Ethnically the country is highly diverse, with over 580 languages and dialects—but only 13 have more than one million speakers.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 18:55:39 +0000
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