Balivayatravel.com - General Information about Indonesia and beyond #5

Region

Southeast Asia Neighbors

A portion of Indonesia shares the island of Borneo with Malaysia and Brunei. It shares the island of New Guinea; the western section, known as Irian Jaya, is under Indonesian administration, and the eastern section is part of Papua New Guinea. The rest of the republic includes the Greater and Lesser Sunda Islands, and the Moluccas.

Area

1,904,443 square kilometers (735,310 square miles)

Size Comparison: More than five times the size of Japan

A stretch of relatively open water--consisting of the Java, Flores, and Banda seas--divides the major islands of Indonesia into two unequal strings of islands: the comparatively long, narrow islands of Sumatra, Java, Timor, and others, to the south, and Borneo, Sulawesi, the Moluccas, and New Guinea to the north.

A chain of volcanic mountains rising to heights of more than 3,805 meters (12,483 feet) extends from west to east through the southern islands from Sumatra to Timor. Mount Jaya (5,030 meters/16,502 feet), in the Sudirman Range of Irian Jaya, is the highest elevation in the republic. Each of the major northern islands has a central mountain mass, with plains along the coasts.

The most extensive lowland areas are on Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and Irian Jaya. Over many centuries, periodic volcanic flows from the numerous active volcanoes have deposited rich soils on the lowlands, particularly in Java.

The climate of Indonesia is tropical, with two monsoon seasons--a wet season from November to March and a dry season from June to October. The weather is more moderate between monsoons. Many parts of the country have only slight differences in precipitation during the wet and dry seasons.

Humidity is generally high, averaging about 80 per cent annually. The daily temperature range (about 20° to 32°C/about 68° to 90°F at Jakarta) varies little from winter to summer. Rainfall in the lowlands averages about 1,780 to 3,175 millimeters (70 to 125 inches) annually and in some mountain regions reaches about 6,100 millimeters (240 inches).

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