Indonesia is a country on the Java Sea, along the Equator in Southeast Asia.
It is unusual because it is made up entirely of islands, more than 13,000 of them, many of them volcanic and stretching over an area of 3,200 miles (5,152 km).
People live on about 6,000 of those islands. Indonesia’s islands form the largest archipelago in the world.
Sumatra and Java are two of the largest islands.
Java has 112 mountains, 17 of which are active volcanoes. It is also one of the most densely populated islands in the world.
The fertile volcanic soils in the eastern part of Java let farmers grow up to three crops a year, which makes it possible for the country to feed all its people.
Indonesia is the fourth largest country in the world in population, after China, India, and the United States.
It has about 230 million people, most of whom are Muslims.
For almost 300 years, Indonesia was governed by a European country, the Netherlands.
The name Indonesia comes from the Latin word “Indus”, and the Greek “nesos”, which means “island”.
The name is from the 18th century, and was coined by James Richardson Logan.
Logan was a student of English ethnologist George Earl, and used Indonesia as a synonym for Indian Archipelago in a publication.
