The Best Information About Indonesia

Indonesia is the largest archipelago in the world, officially comprising 17,508 islands, 6,000 of which are inhabited. It straddles the Equator between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. Indonesia neighbors Australia to the south and Palau, the Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore and Thailand to the north, as well as India to the northwest.

Indonesia is vast: its islands provide over 67,000 miles of beaches, and the distance between the provinces of Aceh and Papua is about 2,500 miles, comparable to the distance between New York and San Francisco. There are more than 400 volcanoes in Indonesia, 130 of them active, and many undersea volcanoes. The island of New Guinea (on which the Indonesian province of Papua is located) is the second largest island in the world.

Beach resorts and hotels abound on some Indonesian islands, with Bali being the primary tourist destination. Cultural tourism is also an important part of the Indonesian tourism industry. Toraja, Prambanan and Borobudur temples, Yogyakarta and Minangkabau are popular destinations for cultural tourism, as are many Hindu festivities in Bali.