ABSTRACT
Indonesia (before World War II, known as the Netherlands East Indies) comprises more than 3,000 islands stretching from Sumatra to West Irian, or Irian Jaya (the former Netherlands New Guinea), for a distance of some 3,400 miles. This represents an area comparable, in Europe, to that of an area reaching from west of Ireland to east of the Caspian Sea; in the United States, the region represented would reach from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific. Accounting for half the territory of Southeast Asia, the land area of Indonesia is exceeded in all of Asia only by India and China.
