Indonesia

THE NATION OF INDONESIA is composed of an archipelago of nearly 14,000 islands, approximately half of which are uninhabited. The island chain extends for 3,200 miles from east to west and 1,100 miles from north to south. It has a total land area of some 750,000 square miles, of which the greatest part is concentrated on the three largest islands of Borneo (Kalimantan), most of which belongs to Indonesia, Sumatra, and the western part of New Guinea known as Irian Jaya.

Additional important areas include the capital island of Java, the Celebes, and the Moluccas. Although Java is a comparatively small part of Indonesia, it has for much of known history constituted the central part of a thalassocratic state and also has been known as the spiritual center of the region, control of which provides legitimization for any monarch. The capital city of Jakarta is also located on Java.

The total population of the country is estimated to exceed 240 million and the largest cities include Jakarta (population nearly nine million), Surabaya (population around three million), Bandung (population two million), and Palembang (population approximately 1.5 million). The country has the fifth largest population in the world and, partly for cultural and religious reasons and partly because of government promotion, fertility is high, as too is the proportion of young people in the population. The proportion of the population living below the poverty line is 27 percent and the average annual Gross Domestic Product per capita is approximately $3,500.

The majority of the people are Muslims, although there are islands with different religious affiliations, such as the Christians of Aceh and the Hindus of Bali. There is also a significant Chinese ethnic minority that has become associated with commercial success. The wide range of ethnicities has resulted in numerous incidents of racially or religiously inspired violence. In the aftermath of the 1997 financial crisis, ethnic Chinese people, particularly women, were targeted for mob violence. The extremist religious group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) is widely believed to have been responsible for bomb attacks on Bali, which killed more than 200 in 2002 and 22 in 2005. However, the government of Indonesia has yet to ban the organization and maintains there is insufficient evidence to do so. The potential for widespread disorder and revolution for religious reasons exists, although it is unlikely.

The numerous islands contain a wide variety of natural resources, including the various spices that inspired the colonization by the Portuguese and subsequently the Dutch. There are also considerable reserves of oil and gas, which are not being fully exploited because of lack of investment. Indonesia has macroeconomic problems, notably unemployment, while the history of authoritarian regimes has stimulated pervasive corruption throughout every level of the economy.