Geography

Indonesia is a land of vivid contrasts. Gleaming urban skyscrapes tower above tiny roadside kiosks selling ancient herbal remedies thatch-roofed village houses sport a television in the family room and a team of oxen tethered in the yard.

To understand the forces shaping the personality of Indonesia, past and present, many of the nation's most fundamental characteristics can be discerned from the contours of a map.

The map reveals a sprawling nation, tracing the path of the Equator over several thousand miles. Comprising 13,700 islands a bridge between the landmass of Southeast Asia and the continent of Australia -- the vast archipelago of Indonesia spans three time zones over a width greater than the distance from Dublin to Moscow, or from Florida to Alaska. Indonesia's historical evolution has been strongly influenced by the sheer forces of it's own geography -- with the interplay between climate, rainfall and volcanic activity shaping agricultural and population patterns in different ways throughout the country's enormous diversity of islands. Islands such as Java and Bali are endowed with some of the most fertile soil of the Earth.

For this reason, they are most heavily populated and enjoy the most ancient of cultures. Other regions -- such as Kalimantan, with its heavy forest canopy, or Nusa Tenggara (Lesser Sunda) islands, with their more arid climate -- are home to smaller numbers of people.

The distance seperating islands both from one another and from neighboring countries also played a critical role in determining Indonesia's early patterns of settlement and population movement. Whether for trade or cultural reasons, certain regions of Indonesia shared histories that were closely interwined.

Other regions remained largely untouched by outside contact and developed their traditions in relative isolation. Java, for example was strongly influenced by the early Hindu and Buddhist traders from India, as long ago as the 7th century, coastal Kalimantan, on the other hand, was touched more directly by influences from Northeast Asian nations; Aceh, in northernmost Sumatra, was more strongly affected by Islamic traders from the Middle East. All have joined together to create the Indonesian mosaic today.

Geography has also played role in the remarkable diversity of Indonesia's abundant plant and animal life. The 19th-century British botanist Alfred Russell Wallace, who is credited , together with Darwin, with the theory of evolution, determined a precise line of demarkation between the Indonesian islands of Bali and Lombok -- the "Wallace Line" -- which separates the flora and fauna found throughout Asia from those unique to Australasia.

Sometimes called the "Ring of Fire" (referring to the chain of active volcanoes that form its spine) Indonesia also is the sole habitat for several of the world's most unusual living species -- ranging from the menacing Komodo Drageon, a 10-foot carnivorous lizard, to a bizarre flower known as Rafflesia, with damp and tropical petals opening more than a meter in diameter. Just as the forces of geography and climate strongly influenced these islands in the past , they continue to play a critical roled in shaping the evolving nature of Indonesia today.

Beginning as a loosely structured amalgam of autonomous regions and races, Indonesia has worked diligently to develop a common national language and a shared political ideology Together these have played a crucial role in forging former fiefdoms into today's proud unified nation. It was with good reason that the new country adopted as its motto the slogan Bhinneka Tunggal Ika. Taken from the ancient sanskrit means "Unity in Diversity" - aptly expressing the rich complexity of the people of Indonesia and their nation. Taken from Embassy of Indonesia Website, Ottawa-Canada.

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