- Name: Juwono
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian and Pacific oceans. Comprising over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guinea, Indonesia is the world's largest archipelagic state and the 14th-largest country by area, at 1,904,569 square kilometres (735,358 square miles). With over 280 million people, Indonesia is the world's fourth-most-populous country and the most populous Muslim-majority country. Java, the world's most populous island, is home to more than half of the country's population.
Indonesia operates as a presidential republic with an elected legislature and consists of 38 provinces, nine of which have special autonomous status. Jakarta, the largest city, is the world's second-most-populous urban area. Indonesia shares land borders with Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, and the eastern part of Malaysia, as well as maritime borders with Singapore, Peninsular Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Australia, Palau, and India. Despite its large population and densely populated regions, Indonesia has vast areas of wilderness that support one of the world's highest levels of biodiversity.
The name Indonesia derives from the Greek words Indos (Ἰνδός) and nesos (νῆσος), meaning "Indian islands".[11] The name dates back to the 19th century, far predating the formation of independent Indonesia. In 1850, George Windsor Earl, an English ethnologist, proposed the terms Indunesians—and, his preference, Malayunesians—for the inhabitants of the "Indian Archipelago or Malay Archipelago".[12][13] In the same publication, one of his students, James Richardson Logan, used Indonesia as a synonym for Indian Archipelago.[14][15] Dutch academics writing in East Indies publications were reluctant to use Indonesia. They preferred Malay Archipelago (Dutch: Maleische Archipel); the Netherlands East Indies (Nederlandsch Oost Indië), popularly Indië; the East (de Oost); and Insulinde.[16]
The Indonesian archipelago has been inhabited since the time of homo erectus or "Java Man," with fossils dating back 2 million to 500,000 BCE.[17][18][19] Fossils of homo floresiensis, found on Flores, date around 700,000 to 60,000 BCE, while homo sapiens arrived around 43,000 BCE.[20][21][22] Sulawesi and Borneo are home to the world's oldest known cave paintings, dating back 40,000 to 60,000 years,[23][24] and megalithic sites such as western Java's Gunung Padang, Sulawesi's Lore Lindu as well as Sumatra's Nias and Sumba reflect early human settlements and ceremonial practices. After 1900, Indonesia became more common in academic circles outside the Netherlands, and native nationalist groups adopted it for political expression.[16] Adolf Bastian of the University of Berlin popularised the name through his book Indonesien oder die Inseln des Malayischen Archipels, 1884–1894. The first native scholar to use the name was Ki Hajar Dewantara when in 1913, he established a press bureau in the Netherlands, Indonesisch Pers-bureau.[13]
The southernmost country in Asia, Indonesia lies between latitudes 11°S and 6°N and longitudes 95°E and 141°E. It is also a transcontinental country, spanning Southeast Asia and Oceania and is the world's largest archipelagic state, stretching 5,120 kilometres (3,181 mi) from east to west and 1,760 kilometres (1,094 mi) from north to south.[76] According to the Coordinating Ministry for Maritime and Investment Affairs, Indonesia consists of 17,504 islands, with 16,056 registered at the UN and around 922 permanently inhabited.[77][78] Its five largest islands are Sumatra, Java, Borneo (shared with Brunei and Malaysia), Sulawesi, and New Guinea (shared with Papua New Guinea).[79]
Indonesia's equatorial position ensures a relatively stable climate year-round,[81] characterised by two main seasons: dry season from May to October and wet season from November to April, with no extremes of summer and winter.[82] The climate is predominantly tropical rainforest, with cooler climates in mountainous areas over 1,300 to 1,500 metres (4,300 to 4,900 feet) above sea level. The oceanic climate (Köppen Cfb) prevails in highland areas adjacent to rainforest climates, with uniform precipitation year-round.
Indonesia is a republic with a presidential system. Following the fall of the New Order in 1998, sweeping constitutional reforms has restructured the executive, legislative, and judicial branches while maintaining its unitary state framework despite the push to decentralise powers to regional entities.[130][131] The President serves as head of state, head of government, and commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces (Tentara Nasional Indonesia, TNI) and overseeing domestic and foreign policies. Presidents may serve up to two consecutive five-year terms.