60 Fun Facts About Indonesia

Roughly how many islands does Indonesia consist of?

Only a fraction of them are inhabited, and the total stretches more than 5,000 km from Sumatra in the west to New Guinea in the east.

Where does Indonesia rank among the world's countries by population?

Only India, China and the United States have more people, and no country has more Muslims.

More than half of all Indonesians live on which single island?

It packs roughly 56% of the country's population into about 7% of its land area, making it the most crowded large island on Earth.

How many provinces did Indonesia have after the 2022 split of the Papua region?

The count jumped from 34 in 2022 when four new provinces were carved out of the Papua region.

Indonesia's highest peak, Puncak Jaya, is better known to mountaineers by what name?

At 4,884 m it is the tallest island peak on Earth and the Oceania entry on most Seven Summits lists, and it still carries a shrinking equatorial glacier.

Lake Toba, Indonesia's largest lake and the world's largest volcanic lake, lies on which island?

The lake fills the caldera of a supervolcano whose eruption roughly 74,000 years ago briefly altered the planet's climate.

Which island, the third-largest in the world, does Indonesia share with Malaysia and Brunei?

Indonesians call their portion Kalimantan, a name said to come from what locals told a Portuguese explorer in the 16th century.

Which is Indonesia's most active volcano, having erupted regularly since 1548?

Its name means "Fire Mountain" in Javanese, and it looms over one of the country's most densely populated regions.

The volcano Krakatoa, which erupted catastrophically in 1883, sits in which body of water?

The blast destroyed most of the original island, and a 2018 collapse of its offspring volcano sent another deadly tsunami across the same waters.

The explosions of Krakatoa in August 1883 were heard about 3,100 km away in which Australian city?

The sound also reached the island of Rodrigues near Mauritius, roughly 4,800 km away, and the pressure wave rounded the globe three and a half times.

What does Anak Krakatau, the name of the island that rose from the caldera in 1927, mean?

The 'child' had grown to more than 400 m tall by 2017, then lost most of that height in the December 2018 collapse.

Mount Tambora, whose 1815 eruption was the largest in recorded history, is on which island?

The eruption threw out up to 150 cubic kilometres of material, earning a rare 7 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index.

Because of Tambora's 1815 eruption, 1816 became known in Europe and North America as what?

Crops failed across the Northern Hemisphere, and the gloomy weather kept Mary Shelley indoors in Switzerland writing Frankenstein.

Which animal, the largest living species of lizard, is native to a handful of small Indonesian islands?

Males can reach 3 m long and 150 kg, and a 1993 presidential decree made it one of the country's official national animals.

In 2008 Wichita's Sedgwick County Zoo was the first in the Americas to document what in Komodo dragons?

A female can lay viable eggs with no male involved, and because of the lizard's sex-chromosome system those offspring are all male.

The Wallace Line runs through the deep strait separating Bali from which neighbouring island?

Though the two islands are close neighbours, Asian-type mammals dominate one side and Australian-type marsupials and cockatoos appear on the other.

Which English biologist actually named the 'Wallace Line' after Alfred Russel Wallace drew it?

Huxley, nicknamed 'Darwin's Bulldog', coined the name in 1868, nearly a decade after Wallace first drew the boundary.

The word 'orangutan' comes from Malay words meaning what?

The apes now survive only on Borneo and Sumatra, though in the Pleistocene they ranged across Southeast Asia and into southern China.

A third orangutan species, described in 2017 near Lake Toba, is named after which region?

With fewer than 800 individuals it is the rarest great ape, and oddly it is more closely related to the Bornean species than to its Sumatran neighbours.

Rafflesia arnoldii, the Indonesian plant with the largest single bloom on Earth, is nicknamed what for its stench?

It has no leaves, stems or roots of its own and lives as a parasite inside a jungle vine, revealing itself only when it blooms.

In which national park at Java's western tip does the only wild Javan rhinoceros population survive?

Around 74 animals remain there, none are kept in captivity anywhere, and the park sits in the shadow of the Krakatoa volcano.

The tiny extinct human 'Hobbit', found in 2003 in Liang Bua cave, lived on which Indonesian island?

The adult skeleton stood only about 1.1 m tall, and the species survived until modern humans arrived roughly 50,000 years ago.

Which maritime empire, based near modern Palembang, dominated western Maritime Southeast Asia from the 600s?

Modern Indonesians had largely forgotten it until the French scholar George Coedès pieced its history together in the 1920s.

Indonesia's red and white flag is said to derive from the banner of which 13th-century Javanese empire?

The empire, founded by Raden Wijaya after he turned on the Mongol invaders of 1293, is treated as the ancestor of the modern state.

Which prime minister's conquests took Hayam Wuruk's Javanese empire to its peak?

He is remembered for the Palapa oath, a vow to enjoy no spiced food until he had united the archipelago, and Indonesia's first satellite was named Palapa after it.

Indonesia's national motto, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, is usually translated as what?

The phrase is Old Javanese and appears on the scroll gripped in the claws of the Garuda on the national emblem.

The national motto quotes the Kakawin Sutasoma, a 14th-century poem by which Javanese poet?

The poem was written under King Hayam Wuruk and, strikingly for a national slogan, argues that Buddhism and Shaivism are ultimately one truth.

Under colonial rule before 1942, present-day Jakarta was known by what name?

The name honoured the Batavi, an ancient tribe the colonisers regarded as their ancestors; the Japanese occupiers dropped it in 1942.

Most of what is now Indonesia spent about three and a half centuries under which country's colonial rule?

The Portuguese and British both held parts of the archipelago at times, but it was the Dutch East Indies that became modern Indonesia.

On what date did Indonesia proclaim its independence?

The proclamation came two days after Japan's surrender; sovereignty was not formally transferred until December 1949.

Who read the 1945 proclamation of independence and became Indonesia's first president?

A trained architect, he ran a firm in Bandung before politics and later hosted the 1955 Bandung Conference of Asian and African states.

Which president ruled Indonesia from 1967 to 1998 under the military-backed 'New Order'?

Nicknamed 'The Smiling General', he resigned in May 1998 amid the Asian financial crisis after more than three decades in power.

During the 1945-49 war of independence, which city served as Indonesia's capital from 1946 to 1948?

It is still ruled by a hereditary sultan who serves as governor, a unique arrangement in the republic.

What is the name of the capital city Indonesia began building in East Kalimantan in 2022?

The move is meant to relieve Jakarta, which is overcrowded and sinking; Independence Day was celebrated at the new site for the first time in 2024.

Bali is Indonesia's only province where the majority of people follow which religion?

About 86% of the island practises a distinctive Balinese form of the faith, which is why its temples and daily offerings feel so different from the rest of the country.

What unusual thing happens on Bali during Nyepi, the island's annual 'Day of Silence'?

For 24 hours nobody may go onto streets or beaches, lights stay off, and even tourists are confined to their hotels.

Indonesia's red-over-white flag is almost identical to the flag of which small European state?

The two differ only slightly in shade and proportions; Poland's flag has the same colours but reversed, white on top.

Indonesia's national emblem shows which mythical bird bearing a shield on its chest?

The design by Sultan Hamid II of Pontianak was adopted in 1950, and the bird's feathers are counted to encode the date 17-8-1945.

Bahasa Indonesia, the official language, is a standardised form of which language?

Nationalists deliberately chose a trade lingua franca over the language with the most native speakers, Javanese, so no ethnic group would dominate.

The name of Indonesia's currency, the rupiah, comes from a Sanskrit word meaning what?

One rupiah is legally divided into 100 sen, but inflation long ago made sen coins pointless and notes now run to 100,000 rupiah.

In a 2011 CNN poll of the world's 50 best foods, which Indonesian dish was voted number one?

The slow-cooked, coconut-rich beef dish of the Minangkabau people was traditionally carried as travel provisions because it keeps for weeks.

The Indonesian staple nasi goreng literally translates as what?

Its smoky-sweet flavour comes from caramelised sweet soy sauce, and it was officially named one of five national dishes in 2018.

Tempeh, a traditional protein food native to Java, is made by fermenting what?

A mould binds the beans into a firm cake, and its name may come from an Old Javanese word for a whitish fried batter.

Indonesian batik, recognised by UNESCO in 2009, uses what to block the dye?

Patterns are drawn by hand with a spouted copper tool called a canting or stamped on, then the cloth is dyed and the resist boiled away.

Wayang, the Javanese puppet theatre listed by UNESCO in 2003, takes its name from a word meaning what?

In wayang kulit, flat leather puppets are held against a backlit screen while a single puppeteer voices every character through the night.

Gamelan takes its name from a Javanese word for playing which type of instrument?

Ensembles of gongs, metallophones and drums are tuned as a set, so instruments from one gamelan generally cannot be mixed with another's.

Borobudur in Central Java, the world's largest temple of its kind, was built in the 9th century for which religion?

Its 2,672 relief panels and hundreds of stupas were abandoned to jungle and volcanic ash for centuries before being cleared in the 1800s.

The 9th-century Prambanan temple compound honours Brahma, Vishnu and which third deity?

The tallest of its towers, at 47 m, belongs to that deity, and legend says the whole complex was demanded as a thousand temples built in one night.

How many Thomas Cup titles had Indonesia won by the end of 2024, the most of any nation?

The team has entered every edition since first winning in 1958 and has missed the top four only once since the format changed in 1984.

At which Games did Susi Susanti win Indonesia's first Olympic gold, in women's badminton singles?

Alan Budikusuma won the men's singles at the same Games, and the two married in 1997.

Indonesia's first-ever Olympic medal, a silver at Seoul 1988, came in which sport?

The women's team of Lilies Handayani, Nurfitriyana Saiman and Kusuma Wardhani won it four years before badminton joined the Olympic programme.

The name Indonesia combines the Greek 'nesos' (islands) with which other Greek word?

English ethnologist George Windsor Earl floated 'Indunesians' in 1850, and James Richardson Logan used Indonesia as a geographical term the same year.

Which Berlin professor popularised the name Indonesia through a multi-volume book of 1884-94?

Dutch academics preferred names like Malay Archipelago, Netherlands East Indies or Insulinde.

Under which name did Indonesia become the first Asian team to appear at the FIFA World Cup, in 1938?

Football remains one of the country's most followed sports, with public screenings of major matches.

Indonesia's first high-speed rail line, opened in 2023 with Chinese backing, is called what?

It links Jakarta and Bandung; the country's rail network is concentrated on Java and Sumatra.

Roughly how many islands in Indonesia are permanently inhabited?

Published island counts range from 13,466 named islands to more than 17,500.

How many religions does the Indonesian state officially recognise?

They are Islam, Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism.

Roughly what share of Indonesia's population is Javanese, the largest ethnic group?

Javanese is also the most widely spoken local language among more than 700 spoken in the country.

Which Indonesian province may implement aspects of Islamic law under its special arrangements?

Yogyakarta likewise retains a hereditary sultanate, and the six Papuan provinces have special autonomy.

Which 1926 film marked the start of Indonesian cinema during the Dutch colonial period?

Kuldesak (1999) later launched the post-Suharto independent film movement.