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The Indonesian Archipelago, home of the Spice Islands, has been an important trade destination since Chinese sailors first profited from the spice trade in ancient times. Indonesia's history has been influenced by foreign powers drawn to the archipelago by its wealth of natural resources; Indian-influenced Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms flourished, Muslim traders who spread Islam in medieval times, and Europeans during the Age of Exploration, who fought for monopolization of the spice trade. Indonesia was colonized by the Dutch for over three centuries; however, the nation declared its independence in 1945, which was internationally recognized four years later. Indonesia's post-independence history has been turbulent, with political instability and corruption, periods of rapid economic growth and decline, environmental catastrophe, and a recent democratization process.
The name Indonesia was derived the from Greek indus, meaning "India", and nesos, meaning "islands". Dating back to the eighteenth century, the name far predates the formation of the Indonesian nation. In 1850, an English ethnologist George Earl proposed to call the inhabitants of "Indian Archipelago or Malayan Archipelago" as either "Indunesians" or "Malayunesians"; preferring the latter term. J.C. Logan, Earl's student, used "Indonesia" in the same publication as a synonym for "Indian Archipelago". The Dutch academics who had an important position for the East Indies publications, however, were reluctant to use "Indonesia". They used either the term of "Malay Archipelago" (Maleische Archipel), the "Netherlands East Indies" (Nederlandsch Oost Indïes), popularly Indïe, "the East" (de Oost) or even Insulinde, a term introduced in a novel by Max Havelaar in 1860. After 1900, the term Indonesia began to spread in academic circles outside the Netherlands, and Indonesian nationalist groups began to use the term for their political expression. The first Indonesian scholar to use the name was Suwardi Suryaningrat (Ki Hajar Dewantara) when he established a press bureau with the name of Indonesisch Pers-bureau in the Netherlands in 1913.
Indonesia's 18,108 islands, about 6,000 of which are inhabited, are scattered around the equator. The five main islands are Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan (the Indonesian part of Borneo), New Guinea (shared with Papua New Guinea) and Sulawesi. Indonesia borders Malaysia on the island of Borneo (Indonesian, Papua New Guinea on the island of New Guinea and East Timor on the island of Timor. The capital Jakarta is on Java and is the nation's largest city, followed by Surabaya, Bandung, Medan, and Semarang. At 1,919,440 km² (741,050 mi²), Indonesia is the world's sixteenth-largest country in terms of land area. Its population density is 134.39 people per square kilometer, 79th in the world. At 4,884 meters (12,405 feet), Puncak Jaya in Papua is Indonesia's highest peak and Lake Toba in Sumatra its largest lake with an area of 1,145 km² (442 mi²). The country's largest rivers are in Kalimantan and include the Mahakam, and Barito. With their sources in the island’s central massif, they meander through swamps to the sea allowing communication and transport between settlements built along their edges. Its location on the edges of three tectonic plates, specifically the Pacific, Eurasian, and Australian plates, makes Indonesia a site of numerous volcanoes and frequent earthquakes. Indonesia has at least 66 volcanoes, including Krakatoa and Tambora both famous for their devastating eruptions in the nineteenth century. The eruption of the Toba supervolcano 71,500 ± 4000 years ago was one of the largest eruptions known and a global catastrophe. Recent disasters due to seismic activity include the tsunami in Aceh in 2004 and the Yogyakarta earthquake in 2006. Volcanic ash, however, is a major contributor to the high agricultural fertility that has historically sustained significantly high population density on the islands of Java and Bali. Equatorial Indonesia has a tropical climate with two distinct monsoonal wet and dry seasons. Average annual rainfall in the lowlands varies from 1,780 to 3,175 millimetres (70 to 125 inches), and up to 6,100 millimetres (240 inches) in mountainous regions. The mountainous west coast of Sumatra western Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and Papua receive the highest rainfall. Humidity is generally high, averaging about 80%. Temperatures vary little over the year; the average daily temperature range of Jakarta is 21° to 33° Celsius (69° to 92° Fahrenheit).
Indonesian Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for 2005 was US$287 billion, with per capita GDP (PPP) being US$4,458, ranking Indonesia 110th in the world.[1] The services sector is the economy's largest accounting for 45.3% of GDP (2005), followed by industry (40.7%) and agriculture (14.0%). Agriculture, however, is the country's largest employer, employing 46.5% of the 95 million-strong workforce, followed by the services sector (41.7%) and industry (11.8%). Major industries include petroleum and natural gas, textiles, apparel, and mining. Major agricultural products include palm oil, rice, tea, coffee, spices and rubber. Indonesia's main export markets are Japan (22.3% of Indonesian exports in 2005), the United States (13.9%), China (9.1%), and Singapore (8.9%). The major suppliers of imports to Indonesia are Japan (18.0%), China (16.1%), and Singapore (12.8%). In 2005, Indonesia ran a trade surplus with export revenues of US$83.64 billion and import expenditure of US$62.02 billion. The country has extensive natural resources, including crude oil, natural gas, tin, copper, and gold. Indonesia's major imports include machinery and equipment, chemicals, fuels, and foodstuffs. Despite its immense natural resources and agricultural productivity, prosperity has often failed to be equitable. Following independence, the economy deteriorated drastically as a result of political instability, a young inexperienced government, and ill-disciplined economic nationalism. By the time of Sukarno's downfall in the mid-1960s, the economy was in chaos with 1,000% annual inflation, shrinking export revenues, crumbling infrastructure, factories operating at minimal capacity, and negligible investment, resulting in severe poverty and hunger. The New Order administration brought a degree of discipline to economic policy that quickly brought inflation down, stabilized the currency, managed foreign debt, and attracted foreign aid and investment. Indonesia is Asia's only member of OPEC and the 1970s oil price rises provided an export revenue windfall and growth from 1968 to 1981 that averaged over 7%. Growth slowed, however, to an average of 4.3% per annum between 1981 and 1988 due to declining oil prices, on which Indonesia had become overly dependant, and inefficiencies due to over-regulation of the economy. The late 1980s saw a range of economic reform measures including a managed devaluation of the Rupiah to improve export competitiveness, and de-regulation of the financial sector. Foreign investment flowed into Indonesia, particularly into a rapidly developing export-orientated manufacturing sector, and from 1989 to 1997, the Indonesian economy grew by an average of over 7%. The East Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, however, hit Indonesia hard. Against the USD, the currency dropped from about Rp. 2,000 to Rp. 18,000 and the economy shrunk by a devastating 13.7%, causing much hardship. The Rupiah has since stabilized at around Rp. 10,000 and there has been a slow but significant recovery. GDP growth exceeded 5% in both 2004 and 2005 and is forecasted to increase. The patchy nature of the recovery has been exacerbated by political instability since 1998, perceptions of corruption at all levels of government and business, and a perceived slow pace of economic reform. Real per capita income has reached pre-1997 crisis levels but annual inflation in 2006 is estimated at 17%.
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Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia (Indonesian: Republik Indonesia), is a nation of 17,508 islands[2] in the South East Asian archipelago, making it the world's largest archipelagic state. With a population of over 200 million, it is the world's fourth most populous country and the most populous Muslim-majority nation. Indonesia is the world's third largest democracy after India and the U.S. Its capital is Jakarta and it shares land borders with Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Malaysia.
Indonesia is a unitary state consisting of numerous distinct ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups spread across its numerous islands. A shared history of colonialism, rebellion against it, a national language, and a Muslim majority population help to define Indonesia as a state. Indonesia's national motto, "Bhinneka tunggal ika" ("Unity in diversity", derived from Old Javanese), reflects the amalgamation of a myriad cultures, languages, and ethnic groups that shape every aspect of the country. Sectarian tensions, however, have threatened political stability in some regions, leading to violent confrontations.
Etymology
