Java
(2000 pop. 120 million). The island of Java is the political and economic center of Indonesia. In conjunction with the island of Madura, usually included in its statistics, Java has a territory of 132,608 square kilometers. Java is divided into three provinces: West, Central, and East Java, and also includes two special territories: Jakarta and Yogyakarta. A volcanic mountain chain runs the length of the island. Java has over sixty volcanoes, of which more than a dozen are still active. The most important mineral resources are oil, iron ore, and salt. The climate is hot and wet, with a dry and a wet season. Natural forests have been reduced to about 3 percent of the land area. Valuable wood species are teak, coconuts, and spice trees. Endangered animal species include the gibbon, the onehorned rhinoceros, and the leopard. The main ecological problem is soil erosion.
With a density of approximately 905 people per square kilometer, Java is among the world's most densely populated areas. The ethnic composition of the population presents three main groups, each speaking their own language: Javanese, Sundanese, andMadurese. Most of the people are Muslim but some small pockets of Hinduism still survive in East Java.
Java is one of the oldest foci of human habitation, with specimens of Homo erectus dating from 800,000 years ago having been discovered there. The first major principality arose around the beginning of the eighth century. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam consecutively penetrated into Java between the first century CE and the sixteenth century. The Majapahit dynasty flourished there from the end of the thirteenth century to the sixteenth century; at its height its influence reached to Siam and Annam. By the end of the eighteenth century the entire island was under Dutch control. Today, Indonesia's three biggest cities are on Java: Jakarta (the nation's capital), Surabaya, and Bandung.
Java is one of the most fertile tropical places on earth. About 70 percent of the workforce engages in agriculture. Crops grown for domestic use include rice, maize, and cassava. A quarter of Java's land area is used for sawah agriculture (growing rice in flooded paddy fields). Cash commodities include rubber, coffee, tea, tobacco, and peanuts.
Dimitar L. Dimitrov
Further Reading
Beatty, Andrew. (1999) Varieties of Javanese Religion: An Anthropological Account. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Knight, G. R. (2000) Narratives of Colonialism: Sugar, Java, and the Dutch. Huntington, NY: Nova Science Publishers.
Whitten, Tony, Roehayat Soeriaatmadja, and Suraya Afiff. (1996) The Ecology of Java and Bali. Hong Kong, China: Periplus Editions.
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