Sulawesi, also known as Celebes, is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's 11th-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. Within Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo, and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra are more populous.
Central Sulawesi is a province of Indonesia located at the centre of the island of Sulawesi. The administrative capital and largest city is located in Palu. The province borders the provinces of Gorontalo to the east, Southeast Sulawesi, South Sulawesi, and West Sulawesi to the south, and sharing maritime borders with East Kalimantan to the west, North Maluku to the east, and Malaysia and the Philippines to the north.
South Sulawesi is a province in the southern peninsula of Sulawesi, Indonesia. The Selayar Islands archipelago to the south of Sulawesi is also part of the province. The capital and largest city is Makassar. The province is bordered by Central Sulawesi and West Sulawesi to the north, the Gulf of Bone and Southeast Sulawesi to the east, Makassar Strait to the west, and Flores Sea to the south.
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 kris or keris is a Javanese asymmetrical dagger with a distinctive blade-patterning achieved through alternating laminations of iron and nickelous iron (pamor). The kris is famous for its distinctive wavy blade, although many have straight blades as well, and is one of the weapons commonly used in the pencak silat martial art native to Indonesia. Kris have been produced in many regions of Indonesia for centuries, but nowhere—although the island of Bali comes close—is the kris so embedded in a mutually-connected whole of ritual prescriptions and acts, ceremonies, mythical backgrounds and epic poetry as in Central Java. Within Indonesia the kris is commonly associated with Javanese culture, although other ethnicities in it and surrounding regions are familiar with the weapon as part of their cultures, such as the Balinese, Sundanese, Malay, Madurese, Banjar, Buginese, and Makassar people. The kris itself is considered as a cultural symbol of Indonesia and also neighbouring countries like Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.
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 National Museum of Indonesia is an archeological, historical, ethnological, and geographical museum located in Jalan Medan Merdeka Barat, Central Jakarta, right on the west side of Merdeka Square. Popularly known as the Elephant Museum after the elephant statue in its forecourt, its broad collections cover all of Indonesia's territory and almost all of its history. The museum has endeavoured to preserve Indonesia's heritage for two centuries.
This is a brief summary of the geology of Indonesia. Indonesia is located between two major tectonic plates, the Australian Plate and the newly-separated Sunda Plate.
The History of Bali covers a period from the Paleolithic to the present, and is characterized by migrations of people and cultures from other parts of Asia. In the 16th century, the history of Bali started to be marked by Western influence with the arrival of Europeans, to become, after a long and difficult colonial period under the Dutch, an example of the preservation of traditional cultures and a key tourist destination.
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 Makassar or Makassarese people are an ethnic group that inhabits the southern part of the South Peninsula, Sulawesi in Indonesia. They live around Makassar, the capital city of the province of South Sulawesi, as well as the Konjo highlands, the coastal areas, and the Selayar and Spermonde islands. They speak Makassarese, which is closely related to Buginese, and also a Malay creole called Makassar Malay.
Javanisation or Javanization is the process in which Javanese culture dominates, assimilates, or influences other cultures in general. The term "Javanise" means "to make or to become Javanese in form, idiom, style, or character". This domination could take place in various aspects; such as cultural, language, politics and social.
The badik or badek is a knife or dagger developed by the Bugis and Makassar people of southern Sulawesi, Indonesia.
It is quite difficult to define Indonesian art, since the country is immensely diverse. The sprawling archipelago nation consists of 17.000 islands. Around 922 of those permanently inhabited, by over 1,300 ethnic groups, which speak more than 700 living languages.
Pejeng drum is a type of Bronze Age kettledrum which was produced across the archipelago of Indonesia between the 1st and 2nd century AD. They are one of Indonesia's finest example of metalworking. Examples of Bronze Age Pejeng drum, such as the ancient Moon of Pejeng, is the largest bronze drum in the world, indicating the advance of metal casting technique and the active trade in the archipelago in the first millennium AD.
Taiganja are precious metal ornaments found in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, especially in the Sigi Regency. They are used as a kind of jewelry to enhance the status of the wearer, or as protective amulets. The core shape of the taiganja, reminiscent of the female genitalia, is an endemic shape that has been found throughout the Southeast Asian region.
Leti leti is a type of traditional transport vessel from East Madura, Indonesia, especially from the administrative district of Sumenep. The leti leti is a recent development, the hull form and sail were developed in the 19th century. In 1979, sailing leti leti numbered about 1,000, but the number reduced over the next decades as more modern, motorized vessel appeared.
