Indonesia is an archipelagic country located in Southeast Asia and Oceania, lying between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. It is located in a strategic location astride or along major sea lanes connecting East Asia, South Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is the largest archipelago in the world. Indonesia's various regional cultures have been shaped—although not specifically determined—by centuries of complex interactions with its physical environment.
The Australasian realm is one of eight biogeographic realms that is coincident with, but not the same as, the geographical region of Australasia. The realm includes Australia, the island of New Guinea, and the eastern part of the Indonesian archipelago, including the island of Sulawesi, the Moluccas, and the islands of Lombok, Sumbawa, Sumba, Flores, and Timor, often known as the Lesser Sundas.
The Sunda Islands are a group of islands in the Malay Archipelago. They consist of the Greater Sunda Islands and the Lesser Sunda Islands.
Geologically, the Sunda Shelf is a south-eastern extension of the continental shelf of Mainland Southeast Asia. Major landmasses on the shelf include Bali, Borneo, Java, Madura, and Sumatra, as well as their surrounding smaller islands. It covers an area of approximately 1.85 million km2. Sea depths over the shelf rarely exceed 50 metres and extensive areas are less than 20 metres resulting in strong bottom friction and strong tidal friction. Steep undersea gradients separate the Sunda Shelf from the Philippines, Sulawesi, and the Lesser Sunda Islands.
The Sunda Plate is a minor tectonic plate straddling the Equator in the Eastern Hemisphere on which the majority of Southeast Asia is located.
The fauna of Indonesia is characterised by high levels of biodiversity and endemicity due to its distribution over a vast tropical archipelago. Indonesia divides into two ecological regions; western Indonesia which is more influenced by Asian fauna, and the east which is more influenced by Australasian species.
The flora consists of many unique varieties of tropical plants. Blessed with a tropical climate and roughly 17,000 islands, Indonesia is the nation with the second highest biodiversity in the world. The flora of Indonesia reflects an intermingling of Asian, Australian and unique, Indonesian lineages. This is due to the geography of Indonesia, located between the aforementioned continents. The archipelago consists of a variety of regions, from the tropical rain forests of the northern lowlands and the seasonal forests of the southern lowlands through the hill and mountain vegetation, to subalpine shrub vegetation. With the second longest coastline in the world, Indonesia also has many swamps and other varieties of coastal vegetation. Combined, these all give rise to a huge floral biodiversity. There are about 28,000 species of flowering plants documented in Indonesia, including 2500 orchids, 122 species of bamboo, over 350 species of rattan and 400 species of Dipterocarpus, including ebony, sandalwood and teakwood. Indonesia is also home to some unusual species of carnivorous plants. One exceptional species is known as Rafflesia arnoldi, named after Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles and Dr. Thomas Arnold, who discovered the flower in the depths of Bengkulu, southwest Sumatra. This parasitic plant has the largest flower of any plant, does not produce leaves and grows only on one species of liana on the rainforest floor. Another unusual plant is Amorphophallus titanum from Sumatra. Numerous species of insect trapping pitcher plants can also be found in Borneo, Sumatra, and other islands of the Indonesian archipelago. There are a staggering 6000 traditional medicinal plants used as Jamu.,
The Malay Archipelago is a book by the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace which chronicles his scientific exploration, during the eight-year period 1854 to 1862, of the southern portion of the Malay Archipelago including Malaysia, Singapore, the islands of Indonesia, then known as the Dutch East Indies, and the island of New Guinea. It was published in two volumes in 1869, delayed by Wallace's ill health and the work needed to describe the many specimens he brought home. The book went through ten editions in the nineteenth century; it has been reprinted many times since, and has been translated into at least twelve languages.
The State of East Indonesia was a post–World War II state formed in the eastern half of Dutch East Indies. Established in December 1946, it became part of the United States of Indonesia (USI) in 1949 at the end of the Indonesian National Revolution, and was dissolved in 1950 with the end of the USI. It comprised all the islands to the east of Borneo and of Java.
Phaleria is flowering plant genus of about 20–25 species in the family Thymelaeaceae.
Dutch Celebes refers to the period of colonial governance on the island of Sulawesi - as a commandment of the Dutch East India Company from 1699 until its demise in the early 1800s, and then as a part of the Netherlands Indies or Dutch East Indies until 1945. Dutch presence in the region started with the capture of Sulawesi from the Portuguese, and ended with the establishment of the State of East Indonesia. Celebes is now referred to as Sulawesi. Makassar, the capital, was also referred to as: Macassar, Makassar, Macaçar, Mancaçar, or Goa, Gowa.
The Timor and Dependencies Residency was an administrative subdivision (Residency) of the Dutch East Indies located in the Eastern half of Lesser Sunda Islands east of Lombok, it was separated in 1819 from the Governorate of Moluccas (Gouvernement der Molukken. Its capital was at Kupang.
The Australasian Mediterranean Sea is a mediterranean sea located in the area between Southeast Asia and Australasia. It connects the Indian and Pacific oceans. It has a maximum depth of 7,440 m and a surface area of 9.08 mil. km².
The Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824, which ceded Dutch Malacca, a governorate of the Dutch East Indies that was transferred to Great Britain has consolidated modern-day rule to the Malacca state of Malaysia. It was divided into three governorates, namely the Great East, Borneo (Kalimantan) and Sumatra, and into three provinces in Java. Provinces and governorates were further divided into residencies. Residencies under the provinces were divided into regencies, and residencies under governorates were divided into departments and then further into regentschappen.
The Gouvernment of Atjeh and Dependencies was an administrative subdivision (governorate) of the Dutch East Indies located in northern Sumatra in the region of present-day Aceh, Indonesia which existed from the late nineteenth century to 1938. The capital of the governorate was at Koetaradja. In 1938, due to a reorganization of the government structure of the Indies, it no longer had a governor and became a Residency instead, called the Atjeh and Dependencies Residency.
