Difference between revisions of "Borneo" - New World Encyclopedia
John Willis (talk | contribs) |
John Willis (talk | contribs) |
||
| Line 27: | Line 27: | ||
==History== | ==History== | ||
| − | The whole of Borneo was controlled by the empire of Brunei during its golden age from the 15th to 17th centuries. The Portuguese arrived in the 16th century and the Dutch and British the next | + | The whole of Borneo was controlled by the empire of Brunei during its golden age from the 15th to 17th centuries. The Portuguese arrived in the 16th century and the Dutch and British the next as a part of their furious fight for the spice trade. Brunei's power began to ebb, and the sultanate contracted to its present size by the late 1800s. At the same time Dutch influence was spreading across the south of the island from west to east. The British later established the two protectorates on the north side. |
| − | |||
| − | |||
| − | |||
| + | When the [[Dutch East Indies]] became Indonesia in 1950, Kalimantan was a part of the new nation. Both Indonesia and the Philippines objected when Malaya created a union with Singapore as well as Sarawak and Sabah to form Malaysia in 1963. Sporadic Indonesian-led guerrilla raids against the two Malaysian states took place until 1966. Brunei had also been invited to be a part of Malaysia but turned aside the offer. In 1984 it gained independence from Britain. | ||
| + | Peace largely held on the island in the decades since the three countries' independence, but in recent years there has been communal violence within Kalimantan between ethnic and religious groups. | ||
==Demographics== | ==Demographics== | ||
| − | Similar to New Guinea, Borneo has historically had two distinct populations. Tribal groups low in number inhabit the inaccessible inland region while relatively dense farming populations reside along the coast and rivers' lower floodplains. The inland people, called Dayaks, the legendary headhunters, have been mainly [[hunter-gatherers]] with limited cultivation, spoken a myriad of tribal languages, and observed animist practices. In contrast, the coastal peoples developed sea trade, advanced farming, and fishing; spoke Malay dialects; and were predominantly Muslim. The coastal population has continued to dominate the inland tribes politically and in hostilities | + | Similar to New Guinea, Borneo has historically had two distinct populations. Tribal groups low in number inhabit the inaccessible inland region while relatively dense farming populations reside along the coast and rivers' lower floodplains. The inland people, called Dayaks, the legendary headhunters, have been mainly [[hunter-gatherers]] with limited cultivation, spoken a myriad of tribal languages, and observed animist practices. In contrast, the coastal peoples developed sea trade, advanced farming, and fishing; spoke Malay dialects; and were predominantly Muslim. The coastal population has continued to dominate the inland tribes politically and in occasional hostilities. |
| − | |||
| − | |||
| − | |||
| − | |||
| − | + | From early on, Dutch missionaries focused on converting the Dayaks. Much less success occurred with the coastal Muslims. Today violence erupts between the largely Christianized Dayaks and the Muslims of the coast. Among the lowlanders are tens of thousands of immigrants from the small island of Madura, due south of Kalimantan and adjacent to Java. Strictly Muslim, the Madurese began moving to Borneo in the 1960s as part of a government-backed relocation drive to relieve overcrowding in their own land. | |
| + | Communal conflicts in Kalimantan have risen in frequency and intensity as greater numbers of Dayaks have been displaced by Madurese loggers. In 2000-01 there occurred a particularly virulent episode in which Dayaks slaughtered thousands of Madurese. | ||
| − | + | Since the Dayaks are relatively few in number, the island in totality remains predominately Muslim. There are over 40 ethnic groups on Borneo, speaking 65 languages or dialects, most of which are spoken in the interior. Indonesian is the principal language of Kalimantan; Malay, a related tongue, is spoken in the north, where English is also commonly used. The island's highest population density is in Sabah. A sizeable Chinese community exists around the island, but is at its greatest strength in Brunei, where it reaches 15%. | |
| − | |||
| − | |||
| − | |||
==Natural resources== | ==Natural resources== | ||
Revision as of 15:28, 3 February 2006
Borneo, the world's third-largest island, sits astride the Equator at the center of the Malay Archipelago, the Earth's largest group of islands. Among islands, only Greenland and nearby New Guinea surpass it in size, which at 743,330 km² is slightly larger than Texas. It is also the only island on the planet divided among three countries.
The southern two-thirds of the island belongs to Indonesia and is called Kalimantan (meaning "diamond river"); it contains about 60% of the island's population, which is estimated roughly at 14 million. Malaysia's two non-peninsular states, Sabah ("the land below the wind") and Sarawak ("antimony"), hug the north coast and take up most of the rest of the island and its population. Sarawak nearly surrounds the nation of Brunei, a small sultanate with great oil wealth, which also has a coastline on the South China Sea. The island's name derives from Brunei, which was once its center of power.
Though 100% of Brunei lies on Borneo, Kalimantan comprises only 28% of Indonesia's total area and less than 5% of the people of the world's fourth-most-populous nation. The portion of Malaysia's total area that is located on Borneo is 60%, but it contains less than a fifth of the country's people. The island remains a sparsely settled landscape.
Borneo retains an image of exoticism and even darkness and dread in the popular mind. Though it has remarkable natural resources, inspiring vistas, and increasingly rare wildlife, it still hasn't developed as a travel destination nearly as much as nearby spots in the Philippines, peninsular Malaysia, and Indonesian islands such as Java and Bali have.
Geography
Besides the South China Sea, which lies to the north and northwest and separates it from the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, Borneo borders the Sulu Sea separating it from the Philippines to the northeast. Completing the encirclement are the Celebes Sea and Makassar Strait to the east dividing it from the island of Sulawesi, and the Java Sea distancing it from the island of the same name to the south.
Borneo's main range of mountains runs from southwest to northeast. In the south, the elevations are low, only rarely surpassing 1,200 m, but farther north along the Malaysia-Indonesia border they begin to tower, with some in excess of 2,400 m. Borneo's highest peak, Mount Kinabalu in Sabah, reaches 4,095 m close to where the range comes to an end.
The island has a climate that is generally wet and hot, with rain being a more common occurrence than not and some places getting 350-500 cm per year. Monsoons strike dependably between October and March. There is no real dry season.
The principal arteries of Borneo's commerce lie beside or on its rivers, even those with strong currents descending from the mountains. The thick tropical rainforests are believed to be the world's oldest and until recent decades covered the island completely. The coming of large-scale logging and the introduction of extensive oil palm plantations have altered the Bornean landscape dramatically.
The main cities of the island are the capitals of the main political units: Kalimantan's Bandjarmasin, a river port near the southeast cast; Sabah's Kota Kinabalu on the northeastern coast; Sarawak's Kuching, a river town in the northwest; and Brunei's Bandar Seri Begawan, a city set back from Brunei Bay.
History
The whole of Borneo was controlled by the empire of Brunei during its golden age from the 15th to 17th centuries. The Portuguese arrived in the 16th century and the Dutch and British the next as a part of their furious fight for the spice trade. Brunei's power began to ebb, and the sultanate contracted to its present size by the late 1800s. At the same time Dutch influence was spreading across the south of the island from west to east. The British later established the two protectorates on the north side.
When the Dutch East Indies became Indonesia in 1950, Kalimantan was a part of the new nation. Both Indonesia and the Philippines objected when Malaya created a union with Singapore as well as Sarawak and Sabah to form Malaysia in 1963. Sporadic Indonesian-led guerrilla raids against the two Malaysian states took place until 1966. Brunei had also been invited to be a part of Malaysia but turned aside the offer. In 1984 it gained independence from Britain.
Peace largely held on the island in the decades since the three countries' independence, but in recent years there has been communal violence within Kalimantan between ethnic and religious groups.
Demographics
Similar to New Guinea, Borneo has historically had two distinct populations. Tribal groups low in number inhabit the inaccessible inland region while relatively dense farming populations reside along the coast and rivers' lower floodplains. The inland people, called Dayaks, the legendary headhunters, have been mainly hunter-gatherers with limited cultivation, spoken a myriad of tribal languages, and observed animist practices. In contrast, the coastal peoples developed sea trade, advanced farming, and fishing; spoke Malay dialects; and were predominantly Muslim. The coastal population has continued to dominate the inland tribes politically and in occasional hostilities.
From early on, Dutch missionaries focused on converting the Dayaks. Much less success occurred with the coastal Muslims. Today violence erupts between the largely Christianized Dayaks and the Muslims of the coast. Among the lowlanders are tens of thousands of immigrants from the small island of Madura, due south of Kalimantan and adjacent to Java. Strictly Muslim, the Madurese began moving to Borneo in the 1960s as part of a government-backed relocation drive to relieve overcrowding in their own land.
Communal conflicts in Kalimantan have risen in frequency and intensity as greater numbers of Dayaks have been displaced by Madurese loggers. In 2000-01 there occurred a particularly virulent episode in which Dayaks slaughtered thousands of Madurese.
Since the Dayaks are relatively few in number, the island in totality remains predominately Muslim. There are over 40 ethnic groups on Borneo, speaking 65 languages or dialects, most of which are spoken in the interior. Indonesian is the principal language of Kalimantan; Malay, a related tongue, is spoken in the north, where English is also commonly used. The island's highest population density is in Sabah. A sizeable Chinese community exists around the island, but is at its greatest strength in Brunei, where it reaches 15%.
Natural resources
REDO - the highest species diversity of any terrestrial ecosystem, supplying food, medicines, cash crops and building materials.
The island historically had extensive rainforest cover, but the area is shrinking rapidly due to heavy logging for the needs of the Malaysian plywood industry and also multinational companies such as Mitsubishi take their share. One half of the annual tropical timber acquisition of the whole world comes from Borneo. Furthermore, palm plantations are rapidly encroaching on the last remnants of primary rainforest. The rainforest was also greatly destroyed due to the forest fires in 1997 to 1998 which were started by man and coincided with an exceptional drought season of El Niño. During the great fire, hotspots could be seen on satellite images and a haze was created that affected most of the Malay Archipelago. The remaining Borneo rainforest is the only natural habitat for the endangered Bornean orangutan. It is also an important refuge for many endemic forest species, and the Asian elephant, the Sumatran rhinoceros and the clouded leopard.
the Indonesian government started a massive migration of poor farmers to Borneo, called transmigrasi to farm the logged areas, albeit with little success as the fertility of the land has been removed with the trees and what soil remains is washed away in tropical downpours.
Indigenous people (e.g., Kayan, Kenyah, Punan Bah and Penan) living on the island have been fighting for decades for their rights to preserve their environment against loggers and transmigrasi settlers.
The type of rainforests found in Borneo include rare peat-swamp forests and heath forest.
Madura & communal violence, resentment about forest loss
which was characterized by constant clan warfare-----
Credits
New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:
The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:
Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.
.jpg){kind=link}
