Indonesia
CuriousOyster
Steve & Trish Brown
Mon 25 Jul 2011 08:22
way north to Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.
We knew little or nothing about the country and its people before we arrived
in Darwin and then frantically tried to play catch up so that we would not
arrive completely ignorant of the land, people and customs.
Fortunately the kind folk at Sail Indonesia not only make the whole
difficult and bureaucratic process of cruising through Indonesia much
easier, they also provide a mass of information to help the ignorant.
This brief insight is provided by Lucy Moss....
General Information
Area: 1,922,570 sq km (742,308 sq miles).
Population: 224,784,210 (2000).
Population Density: 11.7 per sq km.
Capital: Jakarta (Java). Population: 9,341,400 (1996).
GEOGRAPHY: Indonesia lies between the mainland of South-East Asia and
Australia in the Indian and Pacific oceans. It is the world's largest
archipelago state. Indonesia is made up of six main islands - Sumatra, Java,
Sulawesi, Bali, Kalimantan (part of the island of Borneo) and Irian Jaya
(the western half of New Guinea) - and 30 smaller archipelagos. In total,
the Indonesian archipelago consists of more than 17,000 islands; 6000 of
these are inhabited and stretch over 4828km (3000 miles), most lying in a
volcanic belt with more than 300 volcanoes, the great majority of which are
extinct. The landscape varies from island to island, ranging from high
mountains and plateaux to coastal lowlands and alluvial belts.
As you can see, it's huge, spread across 6 lines of longitude and 28 lines
of latitude straddling the equator. It also has the largest Muslim
population in the world with almost as many Muslims as all other countries
combined. Yet another testimony to the spread of Islam in the 8th and 9th
centuries and completes the circle from the Iberian peninsula and Morocco
from the start of this adventure.
So although we will miss Arian Jaya (the western half of New Guinea) and the
northern Moluccas we hope to have the opportunity to see at least some of
the rest.
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