The Dutch began to colonize Indonesia in the early 17th century; Japan occupied the islands from 1942 to 1945. Indonesia declared its independence after Japan's surrender, but it required four years of intermittent negotiations, recurring hostilities, and UN mediation before the Netherlands agreed to transfer sovereignty in 1949.

Indonesia consists of more than 17.000 islands, of these about 6.000 which are permanently inhabited. About 80 percent of the archipelago is water. The country stretches across some 5.150 km from Sumatra in the west to Papua in the east, almost one eighth of the Earth's circumference. The distance from north to south is about 1.931 km. Indonesia lies at the junction of the Asian and the Australian continental plates, which is the reason for the high volcanic activity in this region.

Kalimantan is the name of the Indonesian part of Borneo, the third largest island in the world. This province alone makes up for 28 percent of the area of Indonesia (539.000 sq. km), but only 5 percent of the population (about 10 million). Two thirds of Borneo belong to Indonesia, the northern region is part of Malaysia and includes the Sabah and Sarawak provinces. The last part belong to the small sultanate of Brunei Darussalam.

The archipelago of Maluku cover almost 1.5 million sq. km, and stretches 1.200 km from north to south and about the same from east to west. Within this huge area there aren about 1.027 smaller and larger islands, of which more than 600 is uninhabited, total land area is about 87.000 sq. km. The largest islands are Seram, Halmahera and Buru, these three islands alone makes up half of the total land area of Maluku.

The Nusa Tenggara islands are mostly poor and sparsely populated. Especially on the eastern islands the climate is dry and the landscape mountainous. Nusa Tenggara is different from the rest of Indonesia both geographically, ethnically and culturally. The main reason for this is the deep waters dividing Nusa Tenggara and the western parts of Indonesia (Sumatra, Java and Borneo).

The province of Riau include parts of central east Sumatra and the Riau islands south to the Berhala strait, north to the Singapore strait and east including the Natuna islands. The provincial capital is Pekanbaru on mainland Sumatra. Population is about 2.7 million, of which a third lives on the islands. Riau is the largest province on the island of Sumatra.

Sulawesi is located east of Borneo, west of Maluku and has a common border with the Philippines to the north. The odd shape of the island naturally divides it into four provinces; South, Southeast, Central and North Sulawesi. The coastline is totally 5.630 km and the area about 189.070 sq. km. Highest mountain is Rantekombola, stretching to an altitude of 3.455 m above sea level.

Sumatra is the fifth largest island in the world and the third largest in Indonesia. Population is about 40 million. The island is divided in the Aceh, Riau, Jambi, Bengkulu and Lampung provinces, and North, South and West Sumatra. It borders the Indian Ocean to the west and Malaysia to the east, separated from the Malay peninsula by the Malacca strait. Area is about 425.000 square kilometers.

Java is covered with 110 volcanoes in a mountain chain stretching from east to west, 35 of them are still active and occasionally erupts. Even if an eruption can cause a lot of damage and suffering, it is also the reason why Java is one of the most fertile agriculturural regions in the world. Compared to other geographic regions the volcanic ash here is non-acid, on the contrary it nurtures the soil and the plant life.

Papua is the largest province of Indonesia, comprising a majority part of the western half of the island of New Guinea and nearby islands. The province originally covered the entire western half of New Guinea (named Irian Jaya), but in 2003, the western portion of the province was declared by the Indonesian Government as a separate province named West Irian Jaya (now West Papua).