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Country Profile - Indonesia
FactfileCapital and largest cityJakartaOther citiesBandung, Surabaya, Medan, Bekasi, Palembang, Tangerang, Makassar, SemarangOfficial languagesIndonesianArea1,811,831 sq kmPopulation237,512,355 (2008 est.)CurrencyRupiah |
Language
There are 742 languages spoken in Indonesia, but Indonesian, the chief language, is spoken by 240 million people. Other languages spoken in Indonesia include Javanese, Sundanese, Madurese, Buginese and Balinese, and many people will speak these local languages in addition to the official Indonesian language. Indonesian is a modified form of Malay, and was first declared to be the official language of the country after Indonesia's independence in 1945. Now it is one of the most widely spoken languages spoken in the world. The language is part of a Western Malayo-Polynesian subgroup of the Austronesian languages, and is formed on a variatin of Old Malay, originally spoken in Sumatra. The language has borrowed heavily from other languages including Sanskrit, Arabic, Chinese, Dutch and Persian.
Economy
With the largest economy in Southeast Asia, Indonesia is also one of the emerging world-market economies in the world. Its estimated GDP is $845.6, and the country's 108 million labour force is mostly divided between the service and industry sectors. Agriculture includes rice, tapioca, peanuts, rubber, cocoa, coffee, beef and poultry, and industries include petroleum, natural gas, textiles and mining. Indonesia's major trading partners include Japan, US, Singapore, China and Taiwan.
Deterioration in the economy after the 1960s led to widespread poverty and hunger. However, the New Order brought relative stability and attracted foreign investment, and following that the exportation of oil (through membership of OPEC), led to a period of high economic growth rates.
Indonesia was badly affected by the East Asian financial crisis in 97 and 98, and its economy shrank by around 13%. There has been a stabilisation since then and another period of economic growth, but despite that almost half of the population live beneath the poverty line.
Ecology
After Brazil, Indonesia has the second most biodiverse climate in the world. Made up of a mix of Asian and Australasian, its flora and fauna include species such as tiger, orangutan, rhinoceros and leopard, while forests cover approximately 60% of the country. It has a wide range of ecosystems including beaches, mangroves, forest, coral reefs, coastal mudflats and small islands. However, its rapid modernisation and industrialisation have caused damaging effect upon the country's environment, with issues of deforestation and wildfire as well as habitat destruction threatening some of its species, for example the famous example of the Sumatran Orangutan. Of recent years the country has been victim of some of the worst natural disasters of the 21st century so far; in 2004 a huge earthquake caused the tsunami that killed around 225 000 people, with Indonesia the heaviest hit. In 2006 another earthquake killed a further 6200 people, and two months later another earthquake and tsunami wreaked havoc once more. Flooding in 2007 left around 340 000 homeless.
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