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Asia Indonesia

Guide to Indonesia, family history and genealogy parish registers, transcripts, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.

Welcome to the INDONESIA Page


---LOCATION---

Indonesia lies between latitudes 11°S and 6°N, and longitudes 95°E and 141°E. It consists of 17,508 islands, about 6,000 of which are inhabited. These are scattered over both sides of the equator. The largest are Java, Sumatra, Borneo (shared with Brunei and Malaysia), New Guinea (shared with Papua New Guinea), and Sulawesi. Indonesia shares land borders with Malaysia on Borneo, Papua New Guinea on the island of New Guinea, and East Timor on the island of Timor. Indonesia shares maritime borders across narrow straits with Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Palau to the north, and with Australia to the south.

Indonesia's location on the edges of the Pacific, Eurasian, and Australian tectonic plates makes it the site of numerous volcanoes and frequent earthquakes. Indonesia has at least 150 active volcanoes, including Krakatoa and Tambora, both famous for their devastating eruptions in the 19th century.

Lying along the equator, Indonesia has a tropical climate, with two distinct monsoonal wet and dry seasons. Average annual rainfall in the lowlands varies from 1,780–3,175 millimeters (70.1–125.0 inches), and up to 6,100 millimeters (240 inches) in mountainous regions. Mountainous areas – particularly in the west coast of Sumatra, West Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and Papua – receive the highest rainfall.

---HISTORY---

Fossils and the remains of tools show that the Indonesian archipelago was inhabited by Homo-erectus, popularly known as "Java Man", between 1.5 million years ago and as recently as 35,000 years ago.

Homo sapiens reached the region by around 45,000 years ago.

Austronesian peoples, who form the majority of the modern population, migrated to South East Asia from Taiwan. They arrived in Indonesia around 2000 BC, and as they spread through the archipelago, pushed the indigenous Melanesian peoples to the far eastern regions.

Ideal agricultural conditions, and the mastering of wet-field rice cultivation as early as the 8th century BC,allowed villages, towns, and small kingdoms to flourish by the 1st century AD. Indonesia's strategic sea-lane position fostered inter-island and international trade, including links with Indian kingdoms and China, which were established several centuries BC. Trade has since fundamentally shaped Indonesian history.

---RELIGION---

While religious freedom is stipulated in the Indonesian constitution,[159] the government officially recognizes only six religions: Islam, Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism.

Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation, at 87.2% in 2010, with the majority being Sunni (99%). Islam was first adopted by Indonesians in northern Sumatra in the 13th century, through the influence of traders, and became the country's dominant religion by the 16th century

Seven percent of the population was Protestant Christian, 2.9% Catholic Christian, 1.7% Hindu, and 0.9% Buddhist or other. Most Indonesian Hindus are Balinese, and most Buddhists in modern-day Indonesia are ethnic Chinese.

A large proportion of Indonesians—such as the Javanese abangan, Balinese Hindus, and Dayak Christians—practice a less orthodox, syncretic form of their religion, which draws on local customs and beliefs.

---ECONOMY---

Indonesia has a mixed economy in which both the private sector and government play significant roles. Indonesia's estimated gross domestic product (nominal), as of 2012 was US$928.274 billion with estimated nominal per capita GDP was US$3,797, and per capita GDP was US$4,943 (international dollars).

The industry sector is the economy's largest and accounts for 46.4% of GDP (2012), this is followed by services (38.6%) and agriculture (14.4%). However, since 2012, the service sector has employed more people than other sectors, accounting for 48.9% of the total labor force, this has been followed by agriculture (38.6%) and industry (22.2%).

The country has extensive natural resources, including crude oil, natural gas, tin, copper, and gold. Indonesia's major imports include machinery and equipment, chemicals, fuels, and foodstuffs, and the country's major export commodities include oil and gas, electrical appliances, plywood, rubber, and textiles.

The tourism sector contributes to around US$9 billion of foreign exchange in 2012, and ranked as the 4th largest among goods and services export sectors. Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, China and Japan are the top five source of visitors to Indonesia.

---RESEARCH TOOLS---

Indonesia does not yet have a fully functioning central civil registry. The following link provides an article describing the difficulties and potential solutions:

UN article on Indonesian records