Kalimantan (Indonesian pronunciation:[kaliˈmantan]) is the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo.[2] It constitutes 73% of the island's area. The non-Indonesian parts of Borneo are Brunei and East Malaysia. In Indonesia, "Kalimantan" refers to the whole island of Borneo.[2]
In 2019, President of Indonesia Joko Widodo proposed that Indonesia's capital be moved to Kalimantan, and in January 2022 Indonesian legislature approved the proposal.[3] The move is expected to take up to 10 years.[4]
Etymology
Most Indonesian refer to The name Kalimantan as derived from the Sanskrit word Kalamanthana, which means "burning weather island", or island with a very hot temperature, referring to its hot and humid tropical climate. It consists of the two words kal[a] ("time, season, period") and manthan[a] ("boiling, churning, burning") because of Indianized culture [5] But the Native people of the Indonesian Borneo referred to their island as Pulu K'lemantan or "Kalimantan" when the sixteenth century Portuguese explorerJorge de Menezes made contact with them.[6][7] Its association with the island and its people has also been attributed to British scientist and colonial administrator Charles Hose from the early 20th century.
Area
Map of Kalimantan (light colour) and its component provinces.
The Indonesian territory makes up 73% of the island by area, and 72.1% of its 2020 population of 23,053,723 (the population was 13,772,543 at the 2010 Census of Indonesia, and 16,625,796 at the 2020 Census).[8] The non-Indonesian parts of Borneo are of Brunei (460,345 in 2020[9]) and East Malaysia (5,967,582 in 2020), the latter comprising the states of Sabah (3,418,785) and Sarawak (2,453,677), and the federal territory of Labuan (95,120). The region within Indonesia is also known as Indonesian Borneo.
Kalimantan's total area is 539,237.77 square kilometres (208,201 sq mi).[10]
The widespread deforestation and other environmental destruction in Kalimantan and other parts of Indonesia has often been described by academics as an ecocide.[11][12][13]
Administrative divisions
Kalimantan is now divided into five provinces. It was administered as one province between 1945 and 1956, but in 1956 it was split into three provinces – East Kalimantan, South Kalimantan and West Kalimantan; then in 1957, the province of Central Kalimantan was created when it was split away from the existing South Kalimantan. There remained four provinces until 25 October 2012, when North Kalimantan was split off from East Kalimantan.
^"Notice historique du royaume Banjarmasin (Bornéo) par M. le Baron T. Van Capellen, lieutenant d'artillerie , aide-de-camp de S. Exc. le gouverneur-général des indes néerlandaises" [Historical record of the Banjarmasin Kingdom (Borneo) by Baron T. Van Capellen, lieutenant of artillery, aide-de-camp of His Excellency, the Governor General of the Dutch Indies]. Le Moniteur des Indes-Orientales et Occidentales [The Monitor of the East and West Indies] (in French). The Hague, Netherlands: Belinfant Brothers. 1847. pp. 164.
0.708 (High)
