Map of Indonesia and Timor

Indonesia / Timor

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Lying across the equator, the Republic of Indonesia is a group of archipelagos that spans a distance equal to one-eighth of the earth's circumference. Indonesia is the fourth most populous nation and 922 of its 18,000 islands are inhabited. Java, home to the capital Jakarta, is the most populated island in the world and more than half of the country's population reside here. Indonesia recognises over 360 ethnic groups speaking more than 700 languages and dialects of which the majority belong to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian ethnolinguistic family. The Javanese make up approximately 40 percent of the population.

Indonesia takes its name from the Greek for 'Indian Island'. Before Dutch colonisation, settlements consisted of numerous independent or semi-independent principalities. Excluding parts of Timor Island, the archipelagos of present-day Indonesia were unified as the Dutch East Indies, when the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, VOC. 1602–1796) came under state administration in 1800. In the early 20th century, the name 'Indonesia' was adopted by the pro-independence movement and was incorporated as the Republic of Indonesia when the colony gained independence in 1949.

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