- Currency: 1 rupia (IDR) = 100 sen
- System of government: Presidential Republic since 1945
- Capital: Jakarta
- Languages: Indonesian (official language), Javanese, Malay, around 250 regional languages.
- Surface area: 1.91 million sq km (0.74 million sq miles)
- Population: 229 million
Of how many islands is Indonesia made up?
Indonesia consists of more than 17,000 islands with a total coastline of 81,350 km (50,549 miles). Around 6,000 of these are inhabited. The largest islands are Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi, Bali, Lombok and Flores.
Is there any volcanic activity in Indonesia?
Many of the islands consist of volcanic rock. Hundreds of volcanoes, of which 70 are still active, follow in succession along the 5,100 km (3,170 mile) chain of islands from Sumatra to the Maluku Islands. The best known of these is Krakatoa in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Sumatra and Java. Approximately 36,000 people lost their lives when it erupted in 1883.
Mount Merapi
What is the biggest problem currently facing Indonesia?
The country’s main problem is its extremely uneven population distribution. More than two thirds of the total population live on Kava (just 7% of the surface area). Ever since the middle of the 20th century attempts have ben made (with little success) to move people to the less densely populated islands. In Java the population density is over 2,000 people per sq km (5,180 people per sq mile) in rural areas and over over 11,000 people per sq km (28,490 people per sq mile) in the capital.
