Indonesia

Flag of Indonesia

The Flag of Indonesia is a simple bicolor with two equal horizontal bands, red (top) and white (bottom) with an overall ratio of 2:3.[1] It was introduced and hoisted in public during the Proclamation of Indonesian Independence on 17 August 1945 in at 56 Jalan Proklamasi (formerly Jalan Pegangsaan Timur) in Jakarta, and again when the Dutch formally transferred sovereignty on 27 December 1949. The design of the flag has remained unchanged since.

Indonesia

A country located off the coast of mainland Southeast Asia in the Indian and Pacific oceans. It is an archipelago that lies across the Equator and spans a distance equivalent to one-eighth of Earth’s circumference. Its islands can be grouped into the Greater Sunda Islands of Sumatra (Sumatera), Java (Jawa), the southern extent of Borneo (Kalimantan), and Celebes (Sulawesi); the Lesser Sunda Islands (Nusa Tenggara) of Bali and a chain of islands that runs eastward through Timor; the Moluccas (Maluku) between Celebes and the island of New Guinea; and the western extent of New Guinea (generally known as Papua). The capital, Jakarta, is located near the northwestern coast of Java. In the early 21st century Indonesia was the most populous country in Southeast Asia and the fourth most populous in the world.

Indonesia was formerly known as the Dutch East Indies (or Netherlands East Indies). Although Indonesia did not become the country’s official name until the time of independence, the name was used as early as 1884 by a German geographer; it is thought to derive from the Greek indos, meaning “India,” and nesos, meaning “island.” After a period of occupation by the Japanese (1942–45) during World War II, Indonesia declared its independence from the Netherlands in 1945. Its struggle for independence, however, continued until 1949, when the Dutch officially recognized Indonesian sovereignty. It was not until the United Nations (UN) acknowledged the western segment of New Guinea as part of Indonesia in 1969 that the country took on its present form. The former Portuguese territory of East Timor (Timor-Leste) was incorporated into Indonesia in 1976. Following a UN-organized referendum in 1999, however, East Timor declared its independence and became fully sovereign in 2002.

GEOGRAPHY

Indonesia is the largest country in Southeast Asia, with a maximum dimension from east to west of about 3,200 miles (5,100 km) and an extent from north to south of 1,100 miles (1,800 km). It shares a border with Malaysia in the northern part of Borneo and with Papua New Guinea in the centre of New Guinea. Indonesia is composed of some 17,500 islands, of which more than 7,000 are uninhabited. Almost three-fourths of Indonesia’s area is embraced by Sumatra, Kalimantan, and western New Guinea; Celebes, Java, and the Moluccas account for most of the country’s remaining area.

The major Indonesian islands are characterized by densely forested volcanic mountains in the interior that slope downward to coastal plains covered by thick alluvial swamps that, in turn, dissolve into shallow seas and coral reefs. Beneath this surface the unique and complex physical structure of Indonesia encompasses the junction of three major sections of the Earth’s crust and involves a complicated series of shelves, volcanic mountain chains, and deep-sea trenches. The island of Borneo and the island arc that includes Sumatra, Java, Bali, and the Lesser Sunda chain sit on the Sunda Shelf, a southward extension of the continental mass of Asia. The shelf is bounded on the south and west by deep-sea trenches, such as the Java Trench (about 24,440 feet [7,450 metres] deep at its lowest point), which form the true continental boundary. New Guinea and its adjacent islands, possibly including the island of Halmahera, sit on the Sahul Shelf, which is a northwestern extension of the Australian continental mass; the shelf is bounded to the northeast by a series of oceanic troughs and to the northwest by troughs, a chain of coral reefs, and a series of submarine ridges. The third major unit of the Earth’s crust in Indonesia is an extension of the belt of mountains that forms Japan and the Philippines; the mountains run southward between Borneo and New Guinea and include a series of volcanoes and deep-sea trenches on and around Celebes and the Moluccas.

Source: https://www.britannica.com/place/Indonesia

MORE ON JAVA

Java is some 660 miles (1,060 km) long and has a maximum width of about 125 miles (200 km). Its physical divisions are not as distinct as those of Sumatra, because the continental shelf drops sharply to the Indian Ocean in the southern part of the island. Java can be divided into five latitudinal physiographic regions. The first region, a series of limestone platforms, extends along the southern coast; in some areas the platforms form an eroded karst region (i.e., marked by sinks interspersed with abrupt ridges, irregular rocks, caverns, and underground streams) that makes travel and habitation difficult. A mountain belt just to the north, in the western segment of the island, forms the second region; it is partially composed of sediments derived from eroded volcanoes and includes a number of heavily cultivated alluvial basins, especially around the cities of Bandung and Garut. The belt of volcanoes that runs through the centre of the island constitutes the third region; it contains some 50 active cones and nearly 20 volcanoes that have erupted since the turn of the 20th century. A northern alluvial belt, the fourth region, spreads across the Sunda Shelf toward the sea and is extended by delta formations, particularly during volcanic activity. There are deep inland extensions of this alluvial region, which in central Java cut through to the southern coast. Finally, there is a second limestone platform area along the northern coast of Madura (an island off the northeastern coast of Java) and the adjacent section of eastern Java.

The many islands of the Lesser Sundas to the east of Java are much smaller, less densely populated, and less developed than Java. The physiography of Bali and Lombok is similar to that of eastern Java. The Lesser Sunda Islands continue through Sumbawa and Flores, narrowing progressively until they appear on a map as a spine of volcanic islands that loops northeast into the Banda Islands. The same volcanic system reappears in northern Celebes. Sumba and Timor form an outer (southern) fringe of nonvolcanic islands that resembles the chain off the western edge of the Sunda Shelf near Sumatra.

Read all about our adventure in Indonesia:

  1. https://sites.google.com/view/redbarondiaries/indonesia/java-by-motorcycle-2019.

(Java By Motorcycle 2019)