indonesia

=Indonesia=


 * __Fast Facts__**


 * __Population:__** 234 694 000


 * __Area:__** 1 919 440 km2


 * __Capital City:__** Jakarta


 * __Language:__** Bahasa Indonesia


 * __Currency:__** Indonesian Rupiah


 * __Head of Country:__** President Susilo Bambang YUDHOYONO


 * __Location__**

Indonesia is located in both the northern and southern hemisphere, while the majority is in the southern. As it is in Australasia, its northerly neighbours are all part of Asia. Its northerly neighbours include Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines, while its southerly neighbour is Australia. Indonesia’s easterly neighbour is Papua New Guinea. Indonesia also borders many oceans, including the South China, Andaman, and Philippine Seas as well as the North Pacific Ocean. The Java and Banda seas are within Indonesia. The Indian Ocean, Timor and Arafura Ocean are to its south. Indonesia’s most northerly point is at approximately 6 degrees N, its most southerly at about 10 degrees S, its most westerly point at about 95 degrees E and its most westerly point is at approximately 141 degrees E.

__**Geographical Features**__

Indonesia is a geographical wonder, made up of over 17 500 separate islands. Puncak Jaya, at 4884m is Indonesia’s highest point. Lake Toba, which is in Sumatra, is its largest lake, taking up 1 145km2. Its largest river, Mahakam, expanding 980km, is in Kalimantra.

__**Climate**__

Indonesia has a mainly tropical climate, with an average temperature of 28o to 30oC, with high humidity. It has a wet and dry season. During the wet season there are large amounts of monsoons, while in the dry season, there is rarely rain. As a result of the monsoons, the average rainfall is very large, but because a large amount of it comes at once, it can become difficult to farm. The average rainfall of Indonesia varies from about 1780 to 3175mm per year, although in some places it does get up to 6100mm.

__**Economy**__

Indonesia’s economy is not a particularly large or strong one, as a result of many challenges that it faces. Some of these challenges include poverty and unemployment levels that will not drop, not enough buildings, corruption, fragile banks, poor investment and unequal resource distributing. Some other challenges include the extreme cost of rebuilding from natural disasters such as the 2004 tsunami cost billions of dollars. Also the rising cost of oil in 2004, brought by lack of it, made Indonesia import massive amounts of it, at an extremely high price and greatly increased the trade deficit. This worsened in 2005 and the expensive fuel took an extreme cost in 2006 and greatly increased inflation and interest rates. Rice prices also jumped in 2006, and being a staple food of many Indonesians, it pushed millions more into poverty. New policy packages brought in 2006 were supposed to help investment, infrastructure and the financial sectors, although many of these have still not been put into place.

Indonesia’s GDP in Purchasing Power Parity is 948.3 billion dollars, with a growth rate of 5.5%. It has an unemployment rate of 12.5% with 17.8% of its people in poverty. Indonesia exports $102.3 billion dollars worth of goods every year. These include oil and gas, electrical appliances, plywood, textiles and rubber, of which are mainly exported to Singapore, China, Japan and Malaysia. Indonesia also imports $77.73 billion. The things that are imported include machinery and equipment, chemicals, fuels and food items.

As of 18th October 2007, every one Rupiah will buy approximately 0.000111 US dollars, approximately 0.000123 Australian dollars, approximately 0.0000776 Euro and approximately 0.000147 New Zealand dollars.

__**Government**__

The full name of Indonesia is the Republic of Indonesia. Its capital city is Jakarta. The administrative divisions of Indonesia are 30 provinces and, two special regions and one special capital city district. Indonesia has had independence from the Dutch since 17th August 1945. Its constitution was made in August 1945 and has had three major changes from then until 2002.

The law systems are based on Roman-Dutch law. It is different from this in indigenous concepts, criminal procedures and election codes. It also has not accepted the compulsory ICJ jurisdiction. It has 17 years universal suffrage, although if you are married and under this age you may vote.

__**History**__

People are not sure when the original people came to Indonesia, although some people believe that parts of it were inhabited up to 2 million years ago. As well as the native people, in approximately 2000BC the Taiwanese came to Indonesia. As they came and spread across the land they pushed the natives into the eastern areas. There were excellent agricultural conditions for growing rice in Indonesia, so by the eight century BC, the Indonesians were farming rice. This became large scale and many villages and towns grew from this. They eventually became minor kingdoms when the Indonesians began exporting it to China and India. By the 1st century AD Indonesia was a flourishing country.

As of the 7th century AD the Srivijaya kingdom gained rule and began introducing the Hinduism and Buddhist religions. The Hindu kingdom of Majapahit was founded in the 13th century and, under the rule of Gajah Mada, flourished, causing the rest of Indonesia to excel. These times were so good for Indonesia that that time is now talked of as ‘Indonesia’s Golden Age.’ During this time, the Islamic religion was brought to Indonesia, becoming its main religion by the 16th Century.

The first Europeans, who were Portuguese, arrived in Indonesia in 1512, willing to take to take over Indonesia’s spice industry. The Dutch also came to Indonesia, although only in 1602. They established the Dutch East India Company, also known as the VOC and became the main European power in Indonesia. Unfortunately, the VOC became bankrupt and was shut down in 1800. After this the Dutch Government set up the Dutch East Indies as a national colony in Indonesia.

The Dutch retained their control over Indonesia for almost all of its colonial period. Despite this, the Dutch only expanded to the areas we now know as Indonesia in the 20th Century. The Japanese invaded Indonesia in WWII, taking control from the Dutch. This also saw the beginning of the Indonesian independence movement. This was finalised two days after the Japanese were defeated, in August 1945, when Sukarno, a nationalist leader with huge influence declared Indonesia independent and became its president.

Unfortunately the Dutch wished to re-claim their rule over Indonesia and so started a bitter and bloody struggle in both diplomatic and arms. Fortunately this ended in December 1949. Its end though, was not without many deaths.

After Sukarno re-claimed his position as leader of Indonesia, he began to stop being a democratic leader and gradually introduced different communist aspects. He kept his lead despite these things because of the Islamic religion, the Military and the Communist Party of Indonesia.

Sukarno and the rest of the Communist Party of Indonesia attempted to completely overthrow the government on 30th September 1965, although the democracy supporting military stopped it. This led to many acts of violent anti-communist actions. During this time the PKI, which was the main communist group, was blamed for the coup, and therefore eradicated. All up, as a result of Sukarno’s actions, from 500 thousand to 1 million people were killed.

The leader of the military, General Suharto was appointed president in March 1968. Under hid control, which was helped by the US, foreign investment became encouraged in Indonesia, causing about 30 years of growth in Indonesia’s economy.

In 1997 and 1998, however, the East Asian Financial Cricis weakened Indonesia’s economy massively. This led to protests by the Indonesians, which also led to the resignation of Suharto. In 1999 East Timor decided to officially separate from Indonesia because of repression and human-rights issues.

After all of this Indonesia became a much more democratic country. The first elections were held in 2004. Indonesia is excelling, although it faces many problems such as social unrest, an unstable economy, corruption, terrorism and violence between some different ethnic and religious groups.