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Indonesia


Areas with fertile volcanic soils are cultivated intensively despite the threat of disaster. Stretches of fertile alluvial soils lie along the coasts of the main islands, but many are swampy and difficult to drain. Most of the eastern lowlands of Sumatra are virtually uninhabited for that reason. Upland soils, such as those in most of Borneo, are infertile, although they may have a cover of lush rain forest vegetation. .
             About two thirds of the land area of Indonesia lies under tropical rain forests, only a small portion of which has never been cut or burned. Mangrove tree swamps are common along the shores of alluvial lowlands, including most of Sumatra's east coast.
             Culture.
             Indonesia, with over 190 million people, has the fifth largest population in the world. .
             With 336 different ethnic groups, Indonesia can be considered a spectrum of all the Asian .
             cultures, races and religions. There are also over 300 different languages spoken in the .
             archipelago and most belong to the Malay-Polynesian group. Within this group, many .
             regional languages and dialects are spoken. The lingua franca of the archipelago is .
             Bahasa Indonesia, which is almost identical to Malay. It uses a number of foreign words, .
             indicating the long history of contact Indonesia has had with other cultures. In recent .
             years, Bahasa Indonesia has been appropriated by teenagers into a new and trendy .
             vernacular called Bahasa Prokem; it has proved mostly unintelligible to the older .
             generation.
             Batik, the art of applying wax to cloth and then tie-dying in colourful and dramatic .
             designs, is produced throughout Indonesia, and the centre of this activity is Yogyakarta in .
             Java. Other craft forms include: ikat, which is a type of weaving with tie-dyed threads; .
             songket, a silk cloth with gold or silver threads woven into it; and kris, artwork often .
             decorated with jewels. Javanese wayang (puppet) plays and gamelan (hypnotic music .
             composed mostly of percussive instruments) are also popular artistic forms.


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