while not overlooking the love-hate relationship with numerous volcanoes and having over 700 languages the most mind-betting fact about Indonesia is just how much it is unknown and overlooked as this country located in Asia is to be found near the top of volta's size and the population shards globally I mean it's ranked fourth on the most populous countries list behind the United States and head of Pakistan with its 276 million people yet we challenge the non-indonesians watching this to name three famous people from the Asian country feel free to write them in the comments but don't you dare Google it first and imma be honest here before researching this country and not counting their Infamous former presidents I also couldn't name that many except for one in India and more on that later on [Music] however I did know it was a big country and Indonesia is a massive land in fact it's placed 14th in the world with just about 1.9 million square kilometers just behind Mexico and head of Sudan and if you think I know enough about Indonesia but you still haven't caught on to the fact that you've been staring at the map that had several of the major islands removed well you're in for a treat to be frank I actually think you can be forgiven for not knowing there were some islands missing as Indonesia is the largest archipelago nation in the world and has over 17 500 Islands the country is located between the Pacific and the Indian Ocean but due to its clusterness Indonesia's size isn't appreciated enough and I think this is one of the reasons most people wouldn't name Indonesia when asked about a massive country but if we take this nation and put it over the United States of America you see it stretches out past its coasts and if we do the same thing over Europe it will set out from the Western edges of Ireland and spill over to the deserts of Turkmenistan again it's a massive country Indonesia is also one of the countries considered transcontinental spanning over both Asia and Oceania with their Western half of the second largest island in the world New Guinea Indonesia also shares the third largest island in the world which is Borneo while it is the sole Sovereign of three other islands in the top 15 being Sumatra sulavesi and Java the last of which is particularly mind-blowing as it is the home to 56 percent of the Indonesian population yeah that means that this small strip of land holds more people than Japan or even Russia and that's with the fact that this area is just about 124 000 square kilometers which isn't even one percent of the total landmass of Russia you see the population of this island is so big that if it was a sovereign country the island of java would have some of the highest population density in the world with 1171 people per square kilometers ranking in behind the city states like Monaco and Macau and all of that even though seemingly other larger Indonesian Islands seem like the better fit for a massive population due to larger planes and having far fewer volcanoes and here is where the love-hate relationship with volcanoes we mentioned comes into play as the eruptions true Ash bring with them minerals that make the lands on Java extremely fertile that in turn provides the abundance of rice fields required to sustain a large population like the one in the capital city of Jakarta which is home to over 10 million people now that's more than the entire population of Sweden on top of this five other cities from the top 15 most populous in Indonesia which have more than a million people all are adjacent to Jakarta so it makes more sense to look at the metropolitan area as a whole which has around 34 million people no wonder the traffic congestions isn't famous but even causing the city itself to sink Yes you heard that right it is physically sinking which kind of makes the next crazy sentence a bit more understandable Indonesia is building a new capital from scratch you see this is a project that will cost at least 32 billion US Dollars and in the end give birth to new santara or the archipelago in English on the eastern shore of Borneo and if you want us to explore a more Sinister take on why some countries change their capitals perhaps including Indonesia let us know in the comments and we might do just that despite being an island nation Indonesia does have quite a bit of land borders about 3.1 000 kilometers of them are on the island called Borneo as there's a line of just about 2 000 kilometers with their main Rivals Malaysia on the island New Guinea there is a divide of 820 kilometers with Papua New Guinea the only country that has them beat on polyglotism which if you don't want to Google the word means the use of many languages while on teamer Island Indonesia borders and splits East Timor or timor-lest for a total of 268 kilometers Indonesia also has the third largest Coastline in the world although that depends on who and how it's being measured as the country is divided by the many bodies of salty water like the Java sea Banda sea molukasi and quite a few others a lot of Transit is done by fairies going from the East and most town in Indonesia jayapura to the near westernmost Banda aje you would have to travel 234 hours and change 5 ferries but if you're taking on this journey just watch out so you don't get stranded on some of the 6 000 uninhabited islands while the Topography of Indonesia is stunningly beautiful with Lush rainforest overlooked by steep volcanic mountains it entails A Dark Truth underneath as this is one of the most volatile regions in the world most of the country is part of the famed Ring of Fire where 90 of all earthquakes happen and also holds about 75 percent of all active volcanoes on the planet these massive movements of the Earth are caused by tectonic plates and Indonesia in particular finds itself on the cross section of several of them between the two continental plates the Australian and the Eurasian but also between the two oceanic plates the Pacific and the Philippine Sea plate the subduction of the Indian plate beneath the Eurasian is what made the volcanic Arc stretching across Sumatra Java Bali and the smaller Islands to the east as since the year 2000 this area has suffered 18 earthquakes of strengths 7.5 or higher on the Richer magnitude scale which is the same power as the massive event that hit turkey in 2023. in 2004 The Joint second strongest earthquake ever recorded happened off the coast of Sumatra causing a massive tsunami that caused tremendous destruction in its path and naturally since the location of the Quake Indonesia was hit hard and the damages caused massive problems and with 147 volcanoes 76 of which are active Indonesia pays a heavy price for its Heavenly luxuries like the shallow seas and coral reefs and speaking of beautiful places one of the world's most famous resort spots is Bali an Indonesian tropical island with amazing weather like most of the country you see the equator cuts to several of the Indonesian Islands resulting in a climate that stays rather consistent to throughout the year with only two seasons the dry one from April to October and the rainy season from November to March although the humidity is quite high as it sits between 70 to 90 percent so naturally tourists flock to Indonesia and the country had over 16 million international arrivals in 2019. most of them coming from Malaysia China Singapore and Australia Indonesia also holds the highest peak of any island in the world punsak Jaya which also is the highest peak of the country and is located in the Far East on the island of New Guinea and stands at 4884 meters due to Indonesia's size and fertile climate this country has one of the highest levels of biodiversity resembling Australia in that Spectrum you see Indonesia has more species of mammals than any other country in the world 515 of them to put a number on it but none of them are more alien-like than the pygmy tarsier and when I think about it it's looking very much like a Furby as well but two other animals endemic to the area are more famous than most of the celebrities from the country and also are the orangutan and the Komodo dragon the latter one being the official national animal of the Republic and let's be frank here this must be some kind of dinosaur while the fauna doesn't fall behind in terms of variants as the giant Padma most beautifully illustrates how come we all know so much about orangutans and the Komodo dragons but so little about the people that they might or may not eat to fix that we must delve into history which is as complex as its geography the established story states that 4 000 years ago the austronesians descended from Taiwan across the sea first settle on the island of sulavesi in the 7th Century A.D the sriviera naval Kingdom flourished controlling the passages between China and India based from Sumatra and this was an important point for the expansion of Buddhism until the 12th century although Hinduism coexisted in the region on Java the Buddhist Highlander Dynasty Left Behind the religion's largest temple bura budur and not far from it around 35 kilometers the Hindu mataram Dynasty bestowed upon the world its Temple prambanan both were built in the same Century yet today not even three percent of Indonesia's population is Buddhist or Hindu combined Javanese Kingdom my Japan was the last great pre-islamic power controlling much of today's Indonesia but also parts of Mainland Malaysia before coming undone in the early 16th century but long before its demise in the 13th century or even the 9th century depending on the sources Islam started spreading throughout the region and it spread not by conkers but by Traders and religious figures following them resulting in Indonesia today being the most populous Muslim majority state with nearly 87 percent of the population following its teachings alongside Islam about 10 percent is Christians Catholics and Protestants combined in the 16th century the natural richness of the area Drew in the European colonizers with the Portuguese arriving first yet reinfluence was overshadowed by the Dutch hence the ratio of Catholics and Protestants interestingly the Dutch didn't manage to make the language stick as other colonizers did which might be one of the reasons why Indonesia isn't so prominent in the global culture but it is in colonism that Indonesia draws its name from though as it was coined by English ethnologist named George winter Earl who coined the term Indonesian the Europeans named the region the East Indies due to its position aligned to India while the locals most commonly used the term you now might be familiar with nusan Tara through its Infamous Dutch East India Company the Dutch rule over the archipelago despite many rebellions all until World War II when the Japanese Empire conquered entire southeast Asia except Thailand which we talk about here but including Indonesia with supports from some of the local nationalists the Japanese were another Menace for the locals who drained the land and the people of the resources luckily that didn't last long as in 1945 after Japan's capitalism the leader of the nationalists sukarno became the first President of Indonesia and served until 1967. the country's sovereignty was recognized only in 1949 after conflict with the Dutch held by the Brits which caused the Europeans around 6 000 lives and the locals somewhere between 25 000 to 100 000 so Cardinal now had a massive diverse country to run all while he was leaning towards socialism in a deeply religious country and in an event that to this day is shrouded with mystery and theories in 1965 the Army reacted to a coupe attempt blamed the Communist for it and then in merciless purchase killed up to a million of them this happened around the same time as the peak of the Cold War and it's not surprising that many sources claimed that the shift was orchestrated by the intelligence agencies of the United States and UK Major General suharta took power in 1967 with his ruling party the New Order in 1975 after Portugal renounced its claim on East Timor Indonesia invaded a small country with no complaints from the largest Powers until the 1991 Santa Cruz Massacre when 250 timuri's protesters were killed which turned the narrative or started it suharta was finished by the economic crisis and in 1998 after massive riots his rule ended his team were regained its independence in 2002 and since then Indonesia has improved its sense in the global Society becoming a member of the 20. yet as we stated the country is a micro Universe of its own and not many people from Indonesia are known globally I teach you how to start with an India I knew of the person I was thinking of is Raja Nina nainggolan who earned his nickname after the determination to fight after every loose ball the footballer represented Belgium but is Indonesian of batak background from his father's side buttocks are one of the 1 300 ethnic groups in Indonesia the most numerous being the Javanese at 42 percent and soon Denise at 15 followed by a huge drop-off and a whole map of Indonesia's ethnic groups could give an anxiety attack even to Europa universalis players but at least now the number of 700 languages isn't that surprising right although it had to be formed through a Common Language the Indonesian one neither surprising now is the country's motto unity in diversity obviously we only scratched the surface of this colossal country and if this video gets the crowd of a typical Jakarta traffic Rush we'll surely take a deeper dive into Indonesia thank you