Indonesia is a vast archipelagic country in Southeast Asia, made up of more than seventeen thousand islands scattered along the equator between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's largest island nation, the fourth most populous country, and home to the largest Muslim population on Earth. A land of volcanoes, rainforests, and extraordinary biodiversity, it binds hundreds of peoples into a single nation.
Indonesia's islands were home to powerful kingdoms and empires, including the maritime trading state of Srivijaya and the mighty Majapahit, whose influence spread across the region. The islands' spices drew traders from across the world and, in time, European colonisers. Islam spread through the archipelago from the thirteenth century. The Dutch gradually took control over some three centuries, ruling the Dutch East Indies until Japanese occupation in the Second World War opened the way to independence.
Indonesia spreads across a great chain of islands straddling the equator, among them Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Sulawesi, and New Guinea. It sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire and has more active volcanoes than any other country, their ash making the soil of islands like Java remarkably fertile. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are a constant fact of life. Tropical rainforests shelter unique creatures such as orangutans and the giant Komodo dragon.
The Indonesian flag, called the Sang Saka Merah Putih, meaning the lofty red and white, is a simple horizontal bicolour of red over white. Red is taken to stand for courage and the body, white for purity and the spirit. The colours are ancient in the region, associated with the Majapahit empire, and the flag was raised at the proclamation of independence in 1945 as the emblem of the new republic.
Indonesia has the largest Muslim population of any country in the world, and Islam shapes much of its culture, yet the nation is not an Islamic state. Its founding philosophy, Pancasila, enshrines belief in one God while officially recognising six religions, including Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism. The island of Bali is famously Hindu, and a tradition of religious pluralism, summed up in the national motto meaning unity in diversity, is central to the country's identity.
Indonesian cuisine is as diverse as its islands, united by rice as the staple and by bold, aromatic spices. Nasi goreng, fried rice, and mie goreng, fried noodles, are everyday favourites, while satay, skewers of grilled meat with peanut sauce, is beloved across the archipelago. Rendang, a slow-cooked, richly spiced beef from Sumatra, is often ranked among the most delicious dishes in the world, and the fiery chili paste sambal accompanies almost everything.
Agriculture is a mainstay of Indonesian life, and the country is the world's largest producer of palm oil, a major export that has also driven concern over rainforest loss. Rice is the essential food crop, grown in terraced paddies, and Indonesia is a leading grower of coffee, rubber, cocoa, and the spices, including nutmeg and cloves, that first drew the world to its shores. The warm, wet, volcanic land is exceptionally productive.
The Majapahit empire of the fourteenth century is remembered as a golden age that first united much of the archipelago. The spice trade made these islands a prize fought over by European powers. Independence, proclaimed in 1945 by the leader Sukarno and secured after a struggle against Dutch return, created the modern state. In 2004 a massive undersea earthquake off Sumatra unleashed a tsunami that devastated the province of Aceh and coasts across the Indian Ocean.
Indonesia has a population of around 277 million people, the fourth largest in the world. They belong to hundreds of distinct ethnic groups speaking hundreds of languages, bound together by a shared national language, Indonesian. More than half the population lives on the island of Java, the most populous island on Earth, where the sprawling capital Jakarta sits. To ease the strain, the country has begun building a new capital, Nusantara, on the island of Borneo.
