Indonesia: An overview from Wikipedia

Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim country, the world’s largest archipelago, the place that enjoys the most thunderstorms on Earth. It is also attibuted to be the ‘epicenter of marine life’ on the planet. There’s also a whole lot of history and facts that most people aren’t aware of.


Wikipedia has an overview of Indonesia which is fun to read through. US President GW Bush recently visited Indonesia and said the country is a lot bigger than most Americans think. Some of the interesting facts I was unaware of include:

•Indonesia is the world’s 16th-largest country in terms of land area.
•Indonesia’s national motto, Bhinneka tunggal ika, is derived from Old Javanese (kawi), and means ‘unity in diversity’.
•The name ‘Indonesia’ was derived the from Greek indus, meaning India, and nesos, meaning islands
•Homo erectus, or Java Man lived in Indonesia between 500,000 and 2 million years ago.
•The 5 biggest cities in Indonesia are Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung, Medan, and Semarang.

Clicking around the Wikipedia page, will take you off into many different aspects of Indonesia, ranging from geographic, to historical to political. Here’s Wikipedia’s page on Bali.