Portal:Indonesia
The Indonesian Portal
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia (Indonesian: Republik Indonesia), is a nation of islands consisting of almost 18,000 islands located in the South East Asian Archipelago. It covers the distance from Sabang in the west to Merauke to east (about 5,000 kilometres [3,100 mi]) and from the island of Miangas in the north to the islands of Rote to south (about 1,000 kilometres [620 mi]). The country respects its diversity with the motto Bhinneka Tunggal Ika or "Unity in Diversity". Jakarta, the nation's capital city, is located on island of Java, which is one of the five most populous islands in the nation, along with Sumatra, Kalimantan (Borneo), Sulawesi and New Guinea. Europeans first started visiting the archipelago in the Sixteenth Century. For example the famous British circumnavigator, Sir Francis Drake arrived in Ternate in the Moluccas Islands in November 1579. Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and British continued to arrive over the next century. Later, these countries demanded more than spices and began colonising the archipelago. The Dutch ruled the area for more than 300 years and, in 1942, the Japanese arrived in Indonesia and ruled for three years. Indonesia declared its independence on 17 August 1945. It is the world's fourth most populous country and the most populous Muslim-majority nation, with more than 250 million citizens. Selected article Taman Sari is a site of a former royal garden of the Sultanate of Yogyakarta. It is located about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) south within the grounds of the Kraton, Yogyakarta. Built in the mid-18th century, the Taman Sari had multiple functions, such as a resting area, a workshop, a meditation area, a defense area, and a hiding place. Taman Sari consisted of four distinct areas: a large artificial lake with islands and pavilions located in the west, a bathing complex in the centre, a complex of pavilions and pools in the south, and a smaller lake in the east. Today only the central bathing complex is well preserved, while the other areas have been largely occupied by the Kampung Taman settlement. Since 1995 the Yogyakarta Palace Complex, including Taman Sari, has been listed as a tentative World Heritage Site. (Read more...) Selected biography Amir Hamzah (1911–46) was an Indonesian poet and National Hero of Indonesia. Born into nobility in Langkat, Sumatra, Amir studied in both native- and European-operated schools. He began writing poetry whilst studying in Java, where he fell in love with one of his classmates, Ilik Sundari. His first poems were published in March 1932, and later that he worked together with Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana and Armijn Pane to establish the literary magazine Poedjangga Baroe, which published nearly all of his subsequent works. He was recalled to Langkat in 1937 and married to the sultan's daughter, despite not loving her. For the last years of his life Amir served as a prince of the court, and after Indonesia proclaimed its independence in August 1945, Amir was selected as the nascent nation's representative in Langkat, only to be killed the following year in a social revolution. Amir's oeuvre includes fifty original poems and eighteen pieces of lyrical prose, much of it found in two original poetry collections, Nyanyi Sunyi (1937) and Buah Rindu (1941). Themes vary, but mostly center on a sense of loss and longing, with inspirations found in Islam, traditional Malay literature, and Amir's lost love. (Read more...) Did you know
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