African Art

Indonesia

Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian and Pacific oceans. Comprising between 13,000 and 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guinea, it is the world's largest archipelagic state and the 14th-largest country by area. Indonesia has extensive tropical forests and marine ecosystems that support one of the world's highest levels of biodiversity. The Indonesian archipelago has been inhabited since prehistoric times, with early human presence evidenced by fossils of Homo erectus and Homo sapiens, and megalithic sites. It became connected to regional and international maritime trade networks by the first millennium BCE. Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms developed by early centuries CE, followed by the spread of Islam and the growth of Islamic states from the late medieval period. European powers later competed to monopolise trade in the Spice Islands of Maluku during the Age of Discovery. Dutch commercial and colonial control expanded from the 17th century and was consolidated over most of the archipelago during the 19th and early 20th centuries, before Indonesia proclaimed its independence in the aftermath of World War II. Since independence, Indonesia has experienced separatist conflicts, corruption, political upheaval and natural disasters, alongside democratisation and rapid economic growth. The country today is a presidential republic with an elected legislature and consists of 38 provinces, some of which enjoy greater autonomy than others. Home to over 280 million people, Indonesia ranks fourth in the world by population and has the largest Muslim population of any country. More than half of Indonesians live on Java, the most heavily populated island in the world, while the capital Jakarta is the world's most populous city. Indonesia has hundreds of ethnic groups and more than 700 languages, alongside diverse regional cultures. This diversity is reflected in the national motto, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, meaning "unity in diversity". Indonesian, a standardised variety of Malay, is the official and national language and its lingua franca. Indonesia has the largest economy in Southeast Asia, with services and industry accounting for most output and economic activity concentrated on Java.

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See also

• ▸1690
• ▸Amhara Region
• ▸Aid to the Church in Need

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Text from Wikipedia; plate via Wikimedia Commons. Text CC BY-SA 4.0; plate freely licensed (see Commons). Source record. Images and catalogue data are reproduced from open-access collections.