World map highlighting Malay Archipelago. New Guinea—not part of the Malay Archipelago by some definitions—is also included. |
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| Geography | |
|---|---|
| Location | Southeast Asia, Oceania |
| Total islands | 25,000 - 30,000 |
| Major islands | Borneo, Java, Luzon, Mindanao, New Guinea, Sulawesi, Sumatra |
| Area | 2,000,000 km2 (800,000 sq mi) |
| Highest point | [1] |
| Country | |
| Demographics | |
| Population | 350 million.[2] |
| Ethnic groups | Austronesian peoples, Malay, Overseas Chinese |
The Malay Archipelago refers to the archipelago between mainland Southeastern Asia and Australia. The name was derived from the anachronistic concept of a Malay race.[3]
It has also been called the Indo-Australian Archipelago, East Indies, Indonesian Archipelago, and other names over time. The term is largely synonymous with the term Maritime Southeast Asia. Situated between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the group of over 25,000 islands is the largest archipelago by area, and fourth by number of islands in the world. It includes Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Brunei, East Malaysia and East Timor.[4] The island of New Guinea or islands of Papua New Guinea are not always included in definitions of the Malay Archipelago.[4][5]
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The term was derived from the concept of a Malay race,[3] which included the peoples of the modern-day nations of Indonesia (excluding western New Guinea), Malaysia, Brunei, East Timor and the Philippines. The racial concept was proposed by European explorers based on their observations of the influence of the ethnic Malay empire (Indonesia), Srivijaya.[6]
The 19th century naturalist Alfred Wallace used the term "Malay Archipelago" as the title of his influential book documenting his studies in the region. Wallace also referred to the area as the "Indian Archipelago" and the "Indo-Australian" Archipelago.[7] He included within the region the Solomon Islands and the Malay Peninsula due to physiographic similarities.[7] As Wallace noted,[8] there are arguments for excluding Papua New Guinea for cultural and geographical reasons: Papua New Guinea is culturally quite different from the other countries in the region, and the island of New Guinea itself is geologically not part of the continent of Asia, as the islands of the Sunda Shelf are (see Australia).
The archipelago was called the "East Indies"[9] in the European colonial era and is still sometimes referred to as such,[4] but broader usages of the "East Indies" term had included Indochina and the Indian subcontinent. Indonesians use the term "Nusantara" for the "Malay archipelago".[10] The area is also referred to as the Indonesian archipelago.[11][12]
The land and sea area of the archipelago exceeds 2 million km2.[1] The over 25,000 islands of the archipelago comprise many smaller archipelagoes.[13]
The major groupings are:
The six largest islands are New Guinea, Borneo, Sumatra, Sulawesi, Java, and Luzon.
Geologically the archipelago is one of the most active volcanic regions in the world. Tectonic uplifts have produced large mountains, including the highest in Mount Kinabalu in Sabah with a height of 4,095.2 m and Puncak Jaya on New Guinea at 4,884 m (16,024 ft). Other high mountains in the archipelago include Puncak Mandala 4,760 m (15,617 ft) and Puncak Trikora 4,750 m (15,584 ft).
The climate throughout the archipelago, owing to its position on the equator, is tropical.
Malay Archipelago (or Indonesian Archipelago) is often referred to as the largest archipelago in the world, but this is meant by area and not by number of islands. This title aptly represents its 25,000 - 30,000 or so islands which span 5,400 kilometres (3,400 mi) eastward from Sabang in northern Sumatra to Merauke in Irian Jaya. If you superimpose a map of Indonesia over one of Eurasia, you will find that it stretches from Eastern France to Western China; compared to the United States, it covers the area from Eastern California to Bermuda.
Wallace used the term “Malay Archipelago” as the title of his influential book documenting his studies in the region. He proposed the "Wallace Line", a boundary that separated the flora and fauna of Asia and Australia. The ice age boundary was formed by the deep water straits between Borneo and Sulawesi; and through the Lombok Strait between Bali and Lombok. This is now considered the western border of the Wallacea transition zone between the zoogeographical regions of Asia and Australia. The zone has a mixture of species of Asian and Australian origin, and its own endemic species.
Over 350 million people live in the region, with the most populated island being Java. The people living there are predominantly from Austronesian subgroupings and correspondingly speak western Malayo-Polynesian languages. This region of Southeast Asia shares more social and cultural ties with other Austronesian peoples in the Pacific than with the peoples of Mainland Southeast Asia. The main religions in this region are Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and traditional Animism.
Culturally, the region is often seen as part of 'Farther India' or Greater India -- the Coedes 'Indianized states of Southeast Asia' refers to it as 'Island Southeast Asia'.[14]
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