IndonesiaThis essay will be on the History in Brief of Indoneisa, the Governmentof Indoneisia, the island of Java, and the Geography of Indoneisa. In early days, the region from India to Japan, including Indonesia, wasknown to the Europeans as the Indies. Chris Colombus was looking for a westwardsea roots from Europe to the Indies when he arrived in America. During 1600’sdutch political control began to spread Indonesia. Indonesia declared it’s independencein 1945 and fought the Dutch until1949 when they gave up their control. At first, the Dutch allowed nationalist movement to delevope.
In 1905,it had introduced municipal councils to govern the towns and cities. By 1920,there were 32 such councils, with little electorial franchise. Other councils were also established. They included provicial councilsin Java, and group communities concils outside Java. The government of Indonesia is based on a constitution written in 1945. A president serves as the head of government.
The president apionts a sheet ofadvisers consisting of top military leaders and civillians. In theory, the peoples console assembly is supposed to establish ageneral direction of the government’s policys. A house of peoples Representatives is the nations parlament, however, inpractice neither the assembly nor the house has real power. Instead, it is thepresident who makes all of the important decisions. The president is elected to a five year term the Peoples Consulativeassembly. Te assembly has 1,000 members.
It includes the 500 members of thepeoples representives. It also includes 500 members of regional, occupational,and other groups. All assembly members serve five year terms. The assembly usually is onlyheld once every five years. The 500 members of the People’s Representativesincludes 400 who are elected through a system that insures that the government’spotlitical organization win most of the seats.
Servicmen have no vote, so theremaining 100 are appointed by the president on the reccomendation of thecomander of the armed forces. Indonesia is divided into twenty-seven provinces. The provinces aredivided into regioncies and municipalities. These units are further dividedinto villages.
Officials of all local government units exept villages are appointed bycentral government from lists of people nominated by regional legislators. Indonesian villages elect their own village officials to provide localgovernment. Java lies between Sumatra (to the west), and Bali (to the east). Tothe north is the Java Sea.
To the south is the Indian Ocean which Indonesianscall the Indonesian Ocean. The greatest distance from North Java to South Java is two hundredkilometers. From East Java to West Java is over one thousand kilometers. The island of Java has five administrative units: the specialterritory of Jakarta Raya, Java Barat , Jawa Barat, Jawa Tengah, the specialterritory of Yogjakarta, and Jawa Timur. A chain of volcanic mountains run along the island from west to east.
These mountains are apart of a fold in the earth’s crust which extends fromSoutheast Asian mainland through Sumatra and Java to the lesser Sundra Islands. Java itself has 112 peaks. The volcanic soil is extremely fertile and this aresupports a large population. Tangkuban Prahu in West Java is a live volcanoe that attraccts manutourists.
A similar mountain in the Sunda Straights, Krakatoua, is famous forits erruption in 1883. The whole northern portion of the peak was blown away. The explosion was heard over 700 kilometers away. The resulting sea waves causedover thirty six thousand Indonesian deaaths in the low lying of West and SouthJakarta.
Indonesia is a country in south east Asia that consists of more than13,600 islands. The islands lie along the equator, and extend more than 5,000kilometers. Many of the islands cover only a few square kilometers but abouthalf of New Guinea (an area called Irian Jaya), and three fourths of Borneo(Kalimantan), also belong to Indonesia. New Guinea and Borneo are the second andthird largest islands in the world after Greenland.
