Indonesia’s demographic might be the basic information you must know as a foreign visitor. Just like one of the famous sentences in Indonesia; “Tak Kenal Maka Tak Sayang” translated ‘if we do not know it well, it will be difficult to love or get used to something’,
Indonesia demographic you need to know
there is nothing wrong with familiarizing yourself with it. So, let’s get to know Indonesia more closely, shall we?
Region
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is located in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. Indonesia is the world’s largest island country consisting of over 17,000 islands, and the 14th-largest country by area, at 1,904,569 square kilometers (735,358 square miles). This large area and archipelago form is what makes Indonesia’s demographics diverse in each region.
Ethnic and Groups
It has 34 provinces and consists of over 1,300 distinct native ethnic and linguistic groups. Javanese being the largest with 100 million people (42%), followed by Sundanese, who number nearly 40 million (15%). The number of ethnicities and tribes in Indonesia that cause culture in each region can be different, so makes sure you understand the culture when you visit each region in Indonesia.
Population
Indonesia’s total population was 277.7 million in January 2022, making Indonesia the world’s fourth-most populous country. 57.9 percent of Indonesia’s population lived in urban centers, while 42.1 percent lived in rural areas with 49.7 percent of Indonesia’s population is female, while 50.3 percent of the population is male. And here are the five cities in Indonesia with the largest population:
- Jakarta 11,074,811
- Surabaya 2,874,314
- Bekasi 2,543,676
- Bandung 2,444,160
- Medan 2,435,252.
The median age of the population in Indonesia is 30.3 and this is how the population breaks down by age group:
- 8.3 percent of Indonesia’s population is between the ages of 0 and 4.
- 13.9 percent of Indonesia’s population is between the ages of 5 and 12.
- 8.2 percent of Indonesia’s population is between the ages of 13 and 17.
- 11.6 percent of Indonesia’s population is between the ages of 18 and 24.
- 14.9 percent of Indonesia’s population is between the ages of 25 and 34.
- 14.7 percent of Indonesia’s population is between the ages of 35 and 44.
- 12.7 percent of Indonesia’s population is between the ages of 45 and 54.
- 9.0 percent of Indonesia’s population is between the ages of 55 and 64.
- 6.8 percent of Indonesia’s population is aged 65 and above.
Religion
Despite guaranteeing religious freedom in the constitution, the government officially recognizes only six religions: Islam, Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism; with indigenous religions only partly acknowledged. Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country with 231 million adherents or around 86.7 percent.
Language
Bahasa Indonesia is the official language, but there are many different languages native to Indonesia. According to Ethnologue, there are currently 737 languages spoken in Indonesia, the most widely spoken being Javanese and Sundanese.
Education
Every citizen aged seven to fifteen years in Indonesia is required to attend basic education from elementary school to senior high school (Article 6 of Law No. 20 of 2003). From that rule the percentage obtained is 2.51 percent of the population aged 7–15 years old have not or are not in school, those who are no longer in school are 6.04 percent, and the percentage of the population 5 years old and above with a minimum education of junior high school or equivalent is 40.93 percent.
Occupation
In 2021, according to Statista, approximately 37.13 million people were employed in the agricultural, forestry, fisheries, industry, and service sector with the breakdown in percentage as follows; 28.5 percent of the employees in Indonesia were active in the agricultural sector, 22.36 percent in the industry, and 49.14 percent in the service sector with the industry sector makes up around 45.7 percent of the gross domestic product. Nowadays, Indonesia is among the leading countries in the world with the largest gross domestic product.
Those are some Indonesian demographic information that you may need to know before deciding to move to Indonesia. How about it? Has anything caught your attention in this article? Or do you know a little more about Indonesia after reading this article?
