basically, all you have to know is that it's kind of like the Hawaii of the Muslim world, but it's like huge.

It's like the biggest state and with orangutans.

And that's it just no punchline.

Let's just go to the intro song.

*Intro song* It's time to learn Geography NOW!

Hey everybody, I'm your host Barby.

So as some of you know, I've been to Indonesia one time on one island for like three hours

I ate one dish, so basically I'm like the Indonesia expert, right?

Well, if not I'm kind of like the only guy on YouTube doing full profile videos like this, so for now

You'll just have to kind of deal with me for like the next twelve or so minutes. Woohoo, default!

Alright, so again if you don't know anything about Indonesia

It's basically like if the Middle East and South East Asia had

An incredibly colorful, loud, somewhat explosive set of babies, like thousands of them

Okay, that doesn't really help

First of all Indonesia is the world's largest archipelago nation

Located right where the Indian Ocean meets the Pacific Ocean

On the incredibly clustered set of islands making six countries

Known commonly as Nusantara or the Malay Archipelago

Atatatatatat, *Indonesian* Archipelago

Sure, whatever makes you happy

Indonesia actually has land borders with three of these countries

East Timor, Papua New Guinea, and Malaysia, on the biggest island: Borneo or Kalimantan

Which is one of the world's only two triple split nation islands

The other one being Cyprus *CORRECTION: Actually it isn't the Cyprus (as Cyprus was located in West Asia), but it's Brunei*

Although technically if you include the UN Buffer Zone it's kind of like four entities

But the UN isn't a country

Whatever just watch the Cyprus episode

The country is divided into 34 provinces, five of which have special administrative statuses

With the capital and most populous city Jakarta located on Java

The world's most populous island with nearly half of the entire population of Indonesia in it

The largest cities after Jakarta are Surabaya and Bandung both located on Java Island

And Medan located on Sumatra

Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta International

Bali's Ngurah Rai International in Denpasar

And Surabaya's Juanda International

Now here's where things get a little speculative

Today there are still arguments claimed as to exactly how many islands Indonesia has

The National Coordinating Agency for Surveying and Mapping * now named Geospatial Information Agency * says Indonesia has about 13,500

The National Institute of Aeronautics and Space Agency says that it has about 18,300

Whereas the Indonesian government claims about 17,500

But whatever the point is there's a lot of them

Over 8,800 have names and over 900 of them are permanently Inhabited

You would think they are the country with the most islands, but surprisingly Finland and Canada beat them

But a lot of their islands are kind of like boopadoop little islands in the lakes, so does it really count?

Uh, I guess?

Now let's talk about the five special administrative provinces

They are: Aceh, Yogyakarta, West Papua and Papua, and the capital, Jakarta

Now, no surprise the capital Jakarta acts as its own political entity

Lots of countries do that, but what about the others?

First, Aceh. Aceh is kind of like the black sheep of Indonesia

It's the only province in which Sharia law is fully implemented

Also, they kind of have like a ton of oil

So, yeah, they've kind of asserted a very independent ideology

That sets them apart as autonomous from the rest of Indonesia

Then you have Yogyakarta, which is the only region that is still governed by a pre-colonial monarchy

The Sultan of Yogyakarta who acts as a hereditary governor

Otherwise we get the two Papuas, which collectively used to be the province called Irian Jaya

But then in 2003 they got split into two

Basically this is the place that has the least in common with the rest of Indonesia

It has a culture and background closer to their cousins across the border in Papua New Guinea

So then why is this part of Indonesia, well long story short, Indonesia was basically like:

"Well now that we have our full sovereignty, we get everything that the Dutch colonized"

But the people of Papua were not too happy so then Indonesia was like:

"Alright, we'll give you a vote to stay or leave"

"However, we would strongly implore you to make the *right* decision"

So they voted to stay in, a lot of people complained, there's still some current opposition

And to this day, the area has a relatively high level of autonomy

And the government kind of just leaves them alone except for when it comes to mining for resources

Oh, and the South Maluku area also kind of has like an independence dispute thing kind of going on

But the major opponents to the Indonesian government are primarily based in the Netherlands

Then you have the strange Riau Islands which looked like they should belong to Malaysia

But they don't even though they have a strong Malay derived culture

And you have the Ambalat Sea block which has a ton of oil that both they and Malaysia argue over

So that essentially covers most of the administrative divisions of Indonesia

Some of the most notable spots of interest in Indonesia might include:

The National Monument and Museum

Royal Kraton Ngayogyakarta Palace

Ratu Boko

The Magelang Chicken Shaped Church

Borobudur, disputably the largest Buddhist temple in the world

Maimun Palace

The Taman Sari Underground Mosque

The Equator Monument

The Pura Ulun Danu Bratan Lake Temples

Yeah, try to say that five times fast: "Pura Ulun Danu Bratan Lake"

The Millennium Bridge

The Sacred Monkey Temple

The Hellmouth or Elephant Cave

The Seven Story Pagoda of Sibu *CORRECTION: This is in Malaysia*

The Smoked Mummy Villages of Aikim and Jiwika in Papua

Or if you're lazy you can just go to The Taman Mini Indonesia Indah Park

Which kinda has like a bunch of replicas of all the famous sites in Indonesia

Oh, and keep in mind there's Dutch colonial style buildings all over

Too many ancient temples and pagodas to list

And no matter how many buildings and landmarks are built

They will never compare to what mother nature has done, which brings us to:

Indonesia's land is like that one ex we all had back in our 20's

That we trusted a stupid friend to hook us up with

Super attractive, but almost killed you a few times

Indonesia lies on what is labeled as the prehistoric continental shelf known as Sundaland

Which during the ice age times pretty much connected all of the islands together before the Wallace Line

Until the ice melted and filled in the gaps

Now that's where things get incredibly messed up

Not only is indonesia right in the worst part of the ring of fire

But the country is basically smashed between three converging major continental plates

The Eurasian, the Pacific, and the Australian plates

With dozens of minor plates and rifts like the Sunda, Timor, Banda, Malucca, and so on

This in return gives Indonesia over 400 volcanoes disputably more than any in the world

With over 150 active ones making it the most volcanically active country in the world as well

This means on a daily basis Indonesia experiences on average about four earthquakes a day

Ranging anywhere between the small timid three to a noticeable six on the richter scale

And you never know where or when they will happen

Hmm... *clap clap clap* Impressive...

Nonetheless, volcanoes can be a good thing especially when concentrated close to the equator

As the warmer humid climate allows moisture and minerals to coalesce

Creating some of the most fertile land on the planet

This is why places like Hawaii And Iceland are so radically different despite both being volcanic islands

In the end, Indonesia got blessed with a flourishing abundance of flora and fauna

The second highest concentration in the world after Brazil

Many of which being endemic species, like the Rafflesia arnoldii and the Titan arum

The largest flowers in the world, which each smell like rotting corpses

And at over 180, they also have the highest concentration of mammals out of anywhere in the world

Nonetheless, the national animal is actually a reptile, the largest in the world

At three metres long, the famous Komodo Dragon which you can find a bunch of on Komodo Island

Which is where they get their name from, and they can kill people!

Just a heads up

And the surprisingly not national animal even though everybody knows and loves them

The only great ape in Asia, Orangutans, are only found on this archipelago as well

By the way, they look docile and quiet, but orangutans can rip off your arm if you anger them

So don't...

Otherwise, the largest mountain Puncak Jaya is located in the east, in Papua

The longest River, the Kapuas, flows on Kalimantan or Borneo Island

Starting in the east emptying into the South China Sea

The largest lake, as well as the largest volcanic lake in the world, Lake Toba can be found on Sumatra

This is also the site of the largest speculated volcanic explosive eruption on Earth

That essentially created a worldwide volcanic winter

The eruption was so big that you can literally observe ashes from the explosion

That went as far as Malawi in East Africa

Remember guys mother nature is beautiful, but if she wants she can kill you

Close to Puncak Jaya is Grasberg, the largest gold and copper mine in the world

And on Mount Ijen on Java which spews up blue lava

All over you can find Intrepid sulphur miners that literally go into the base of the volcanic craters

Risking health just to get raw sulphur ores

Otherwise you have other anomalies like the Sidoarjo mud volcanoes

The three-colored Lake Kelimutu in Flores

And the Kakaban Island Jellyfish Lake - too many strange places

To this day, Indonesia is the number one producer of palm oil, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, coconut, and vanilla

Some national dishes might include things like:

Rendang

Satay - or Saté *Correct pronunciation: Saté*

Gado-gado

Lontong

Ketupat

Papeda

Ikan bakar

Pempek

Tumpeng

Lemang

And the national dish: Nasi goreng which basically just means fried rice which has no exact recipe

You can mix it up and kind of do whatever you want to it

Oh and keep in mind Malaysia might argue that some of these dishes belong to them

But that's a whole other story tied in with history and culture. Yeah, we got time why not talk about it

Now there's a lot of curious mysteries when it comes to Indonesia's people like:

How did they become predominantly muslim?

Or what's the whole deal with them in Malaysia?

Or wait, this guy is considered an Indonesian? What?!

First of all, the country has about 263 million people, making it the fourth most populous country in the world

With the largest population of Muslims as well

Now here's the thing in a sense. Yes, 95% of the population is considered native Indonesian

That's an incredibly broad term, considering that Indonesia has about 300 different ethno-linguistic groups

Split up across all the island regions of the country

If you look at a map with the actual ethnic group breakdown, it kinda looks something like this

Nonetheless the two largest parent ethnic groups are the Javanese that make up about 40%

The Sudanese that make about 15%

Otherwise, the rest of the population is primarily made up of smaller groups and tribes

That have only around 2 to 3 percent each like the Batak, the Sulawesi, the Balinese

Minangkabau, Betawi, Papuan, Dayak, and so on

Finally about 5% are non-indigenous Indonesians like Chinese, Arabs, Indians, and even a few Europeans

They also use the Indonesian Rupiah as their currency, they use the type-C plug outlet

And they drive on the left side of the road

And here's where things get a little confusing: culture and language

The one thing that kind of unites all Indonesians is that they share the national language Bahasa Indonesia

Which means the Indonesian language

However Bahasa Indonesia is actually kind of like a lingua franca to many of the people

As Indonesia is the world's largest trilingual country

In addition to Bahasa indonesia most people speak their own mother tongue as well as English

Yep, English. They caught on quick when they realized it was the money language

The funny thing, is even though the Javanese make up the largest people group

The Javanese language is not an official language

Technically it could have been, but then that would have favored one people group over all the others

Which would have caused tension, so they kind of had to choose like a neutral default

Plus, Javanese is like really hard to learn

And the original writing system, although very beautiful is incredibly difficult to write

Nonetheless, at nearly 100 million speakers this makes Javanese the largest non-official minority language in the world

And that's why the Bahasa Indonesia language is so strange

It's not even technically indigenous to Indonesia, but more Malay derived

To this day, people who speak Bahasa Indonesia can understand

Somewhere around 60 to 70% of what their neighbors are saying in Malaysia

The biggest difference though would be the loan words as Indonesia took quite a bit of influence from the Dutch back in colonial times

For example kantoor versus kantor, dokter versus dokter, Mantel/mantel, Oma, Opa, Wortel/wortel

Speaking of the Dutch, quick history lesson: