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Land and Resources of Indonesia

Indonesia is located south and east of mainland Asia and north and west of Australia. About half of Indonesia’s nearly 13,700 islands are inhabited; all are located in the Indian and Pacific oceans. The islands stretch across 5,100 km (3,200 mi) in the region of the equator, a distance nearly one-eighth of the Earth’s circumference. The main islands of Indonesia are Java (Jawa), Sumatra (Sumatera), and Sulawesi (Celebes). The republic shares the island of Borneo with Malaysia and Brunei; Indonesian Borneo makes up about 75 percent of the island and is called Kalimantan. Indonesia also shares the island of New Guinea with Papua New Guinea; Indonesia occupies the western half of the island, known as Papua (formerly Irian Jaya). The smaller islands of Indonesia include Madura, Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores, and Bali. Indonesia administers the western part of Timor Island. Indonesia controlled East Timor from 1975 until 1999, when the East Timorese voted for independence. The territory subsequently came under the administration of the United Nations to aid its transition to independence. Unless otherwise indicated, statistical information up to 1999 in this article includes East Timor.

Indonesia is surrounded by the South China Sea, the Celebes Sea, and the Pacific Ocean to the north, and by the Indian Ocean to the south and west. A stretch of mostly open water consisting of the Java, Flores, and Banda seas divides the major islands of Indonesia into two unequal strings: in the south, the long, narrow islands of Sumatra, Timor, Java, and others; and in the north, the islands of Sulawesi, the Moluccas (Spice Islands), and New Guinea. Each of the major northern islands has a central mountain mass, with plains around the coasts. Puncak Jaya (5,030 m/16,503 ft), in the Sudirman Mountains of Papua, is the highest point in the republic. On the southern islands, a chain of volcanic mountains rises to heights of more than 3,600 m (11,800 ft) and extends from Sumatra in the west to Timor in the east. The highest points are Kerinci (3,805 m/12,484 ft) on Sumatra and Semeru (3,676 m/12,060 ft) on Java.

The most extensive lowland areas are in Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan, and Papua. Over centuries, volcanic flows from the many active volcanoes have deposited rich soils on the lowlands, particularly in Java. Java’s fertile volcanic soils support a large agricultural population. The rest of Indonesia is more sparsely settled but contains most of the country’s mineral wealth, including oil in Kalimantan and Sumatra, timber in Kalimantan, and copper in Papua.
Indonesia’s greatest distance from north to south is about 1,900 km (about 1,200 mi) and from east to west about 5,100 km (about 3,200 mi). The country’s total area is 1,904,443 sq km (735,310 sq mi).