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.
Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 482,286.55 km2 (182,812 mi.2), including adjacent islands such as the Simeulue, Nias, Mentawai, Enggano, Riau Islands, Bangka Belitung and Krakatoa archipelago.
Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 156.4 million people, Java is the world's most populous island, home to approximately 56% of the Indonesian population. Indonesia's capital city, Jakarta, is on Java's northwestern coast.
The Sunda Islands are a group of islands in the Malay Archipelago. They consist of the Greater Sunda Islands and the Lesser Sunda Islands.
The Malay Archipelago also called Insulindia or the Indo-Australian Archipelago is the archipelago between Mainland Southeast Asia and Australia. It has also been called the "Malay world," "Nusantara", "East Indies", and other names over time. The name was taken from the 19th-century European concept of a Malay race, later based on the distribution of Austronesian languages. The term is controversial in Indonesia due to its ethnic connotations and colonial undertones, which can overshadow the country's diverse cultures.
Sundaland is a biogeographical region of Southeast Asia corresponding to a larger landmass that was exposed throughout the last 2.6 million years during periods when sea levels were lower. It includes Bali, Borneo, Java, and Sumatra in Indonesia, and their surrounding small islands, as well as the Malay Peninsula on the Asian mainland.
Wallacea is a biogeographical designation for a group of mainly Indonesian islands separated by deep-water straits from the Asian and Australian continental shelves. Wallacea includes Sulawesi, the largest island in the group, as well as Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores, Sumba, Timor, Halmahera, Buru, Seram, and many smaller islands. The islands of Wallacea lie between the Sunda Shelf to the west, and the Sahul Shelf including Australia and New Guinea to the south and east. The total land area of Wallacea is 347,000 km2 (134,000 sq mi).
Canarium is a genus of about 120 species of tropical and subtropical trees, in the family Burseraceae. They grow naturally across tropical Africa, south and southeast Asia, Indochina, Malesia, Australia and western Pacific Islands; including from southern Nigeria east to Madagascar, Mauritius, Sri Lanka and India; from Burma, Malaysia and Thailand through the Malay Peninsula and Vietnam to south China, Taiwan and the Philippines; through Borneo, Indonesia, Timor and New Guinea, through to the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Palau.
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 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 Indonesian archipelago is a vast and diverse collection of over 17,000 to 18,000 islands located between the Indian and Pacific Oceans in Southeast Asia and Oceania. It is the world's largest archipelago, with five main islands—Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Sulawesi, and New Guinea. The Indonesian archipelago is known for its rich biodiversity, unique wildlife, and varied ecosystems, ranging from tropical rainforests to active volcanoes. The archipelago boasts a diverse cultural heritage, with thousands of ethnic groups and languages. Its strategic location and natural resources have made it a historically significant trade hub and a key player in regional and global affairs. Historically, the Indonesian archipelago was influenced by various cultures and empires, including Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms, Islamic sultanates, and European colonial powers, before gaining independence in 1945 as the state of “Indonesia."
There are 1,340 recognised ethnic groups in Indonesia. The vast majority of those belong to the Austronesian peoples, with a sizeable minority being Melanesians. Indonesia has the world's largest number of Austronesians and Melanesians.
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 Sunda clouded leopard is a medium-sized wild cat native to Borneo and Sumatra. It is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 2015, as the total effective population probably consists of fewer than 10,000 mature individuals, with a decreasing population trend. On both Sunda Islands, it is threatened by deforestation. It was classified as a separate species, distinct from the clouded leopard in mainland Southeast Asia based on a study in 2006. Its fur is darker with a smaller cloud pattern.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Indonesia:
Prehistoric Indonesia is a prehistoric period in the Indonesian archipelago that spanned from the Pleistocene period to about the 4th century CE when the Kutai people produced the earliest known stone inscriptions in Indonesia. Unlike the clear distinction between prehistoric and historical periods in Europe and the Middle East, the division is muddled in Indonesia. This is mostly because Indonesia's geographical conditions as a vast archipelago caused some parts — especially the interiors of distant islands — to be virtually isolated from the rest of the world. West Java and coastal Eastern Borneo, for example, began their historical periods in the early 4th century, but megalithic culture still flourished and script was unknown in the rest of Indonesia, including in Nias and Toraja. The Papuans on the Indonesian part of New Guinea island lived virtually in the Stone Age until their first contacts with modern world in the early 20th century. Even today living megalithic traditions still can be found on the island of Sumba and Nias.
The national costume of Indonesia is the national attire that represents the Republic of Indonesia. It is derived from Indonesian culture and Indonesian traditional textile traditions. Today the most widely recognized Indonesian national attires include batik and kebaya, although originally those attires mainly belong within the island of Java and Bali, most prominently within Javanese, Sundanese and Balinese culture. Since Java has been the political and population center of Indonesia, folk attire from the island has become elevated into national status.
The Sunda leopard cat is a small wild cat species native to the Sundaland islands of Java, Bali, Borneo, Sumatra and the Philippines that is considered distinct from the leopard cat occurring in mainland South and Southeast Asia.
The region comprising the other 21 provinces in Sumatra, Java, and Kalimantan is known as Western Indonesia.
