1.
Indonesia
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Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a unitary sovereign state and transcontinental country located mainly in Southeast Asia with some territories in Oceania. Situated between the Indian and Pacific oceans, it is the worlds largest island country, with more than seventeen thousand islands. At 1,904,569 square kilometres, Indonesia is the worlds 14th-largest country in terms of area and worlds 7th-largest country in terms of combined sea. It has an population of over 260 million people and is the worlds fourth most populous country. The worlds most populous island, Java, contains more than half of the countrys population, Indonesias republican form of government includes an elected legislature and president. Indonesia has 34 provinces, of which five have Special Administrative status and its capital and countrys most populous city is Jakarta, which is also the most populous city in Southeast Asia and the second in Asia. The country shares land borders with Papua New Guinea, East Timor, other neighbouring countries include Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, Australia, Palau, and the Indian territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Despite its large population and densely populated regions, Indonesia has vast areas of wilderness that support the second highest level of biodiversity. The country has abundant natural resources like oil and natural gas, tin, copper, agriculture mainly produces rice, palm oil, tea, coffee, cacao, medicinal plants, spices and rubber. Indonesias major trading partners are Japan, United States, China, the Indonesian archipelago has been an important region for trade since at least the 7th century, when Srivijaya and then later Majapahit traded with China and India. Local rulers gradually absorbed foreign cultural, religious and political models from the early centuries CE, Indonesian history has been influenced by foreign powers drawn to its natural resources. Indonesia consists of hundreds of native ethnic and linguistic groups. The largest – and politically dominant – ethnic group are the Javanese, a shared identity has developed, defined by a national language, ethnic diversity, religious pluralism within a Muslim-majority population, and a history of colonialism and rebellion against it. Indonesias national motto, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, articulates the diversity that shapes the country, Indonesias economy is the worlds 16th largest by nominal GDP and the 8th largest by GDP at PPP, the largest in Southeast Asia, and is considered an emerging market and newly industrialised country. Indonesia has been a member of the United Nations since 1950, Indonesia is a member of the G20 major economies and World Trade Organization. The name Indonesia derives from the Greek name of the Indós, the name dates to the 18th century, far predating the formation of independent Indonesia. In 1850, George Windsor Earl, an English ethnologist, proposed the terms Indunesians—and, his preference, in the same publication, one of his students, James Richardson Logan, used Indonesia as a synonym for Indian Archipelago. However, Dutch academics writing in East Indies publications were reluctant to use Indonesia, they preferred Malay Archipelago, the Netherlands East Indies, popularly Indië, the East, and Insulinde
2.
West Sumatra
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West Sumatra is a province of Indonesia. It lies on the west coast of the island of Sumatra, the latest official estimate for January 2014 shows a population of 5,098,790. West Sumatra is sub-divided into 12 regencies and seven cities and it has relatively more cities than other provinces in Indonesia, except Java province. It borders the provinces of North Sumatra to the north, Riau and Jambi to the east and it includes the Mentawai Islands off the coast. The history of West Sumatra is related to the history of the Minangkabau people, archaeological evidence indicates that the area surrounding the Limapuluh Koto regency forms the first area inhabited by the Minangkabau. Limapuluh Koto regency covers a number of rivers which meet at the eastern part of the Sumatran coastline. The Minangkabau ancestors were believed to have arrived via this route and they sailed from Asia via the South China Sea, crossing the Malacca Strait and later settled along the Kampar, Siak and Indragiri rivers. Some lived and developed their culture and traits around the Limapuluh Koto regency, the first westerner to reach West Sumatra was the French explorer Jean Parmentier in 1529. However, the westerners who came for economic and political reasons were the Dutch, the Dutch commercial fleet was seen along the southern coast of West Sumatra between 1595 and 1598. Apart from the Dutch, other European nationalities also came to the such as the Portuguese. The integration with migrants in the ensuing periods introduced cultural changes and their settlement area gradually became diminished and eventually they spread to other parts of West Sumatra. A portion of them went to the Agam regency while others went to the now Tanah Datar regency, from those areas onward, further spread of the population occurred north of the Agam regency, in particular, the Lubuk Sikaping. Most of them settled in the area such as the coastline and some in the southern parts in Solok, Selayo. The history of the West Sumatra Province became more accessible at the time of the rule by Adityawarman and this ruler left considerable amount of evidence of himself, although he did not proclaim that he was the Minangkabau King. Adityawarman ruled Pagaruyung, a region believed by the Minangkabau to be the center of its culture, Adityawarman was the most important figure in Minangkabau history. Apart from introducing a government system by a monarch, he also contributed significantly to the Minangkabau world. His most important contribution was the spread of Buddhism and this religion had a very strong influence in the Minangkabau life. The evidence of such influence found in West Sumatra today includes names such as Saruaso, Pariangan, Padang Barhalo, Candi, Biaro, Sumpur, since the death of Adityawarman in the middle of the 17th century the history of West Sumatra seems more complex
3.
Lake Maninjau
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Lake Maninjau is a caldera lake in West Sumatra, Indonesia. It is located 36 km to the west of Bukittinggi, at 0°19′S 100°12′E, the Maninjau caldera was formed by a volcanic eruption estimated to have occurred around 52,000 years ago. Deposits from the eruption have been found in a radial distribution around Maninjau extending up to 50 km to the east,75 km to the southeast, the deposits are estimated to be distributed over 8500 km² and have a volume of 220–250 km³. The caldera has a length of 20 km and a width of 8 km, Lake Maninjau has an area of 99.5 km², being approximately 16 km long and 7 km wide. The average depth is 105 m, with a depth of 165 m. The natural outlet for water is the Antokan river, located on the west side of the lake. It is the lake in Sumatra which has a natural outlet to the west coast. Since 1983 this water has been used to generate power for West Sumatra. Most of the people who live around Lake Maninjau are ethnically Minangkabau, villages on the shores of the lake include Maninjau and Bayur. Maninjau is a notable tourist destination in the due to its scenic beauty. It is also used as a site for paragliding, two endemic species collected from the lake for local consumption and for export to markets outside the crater are pensi, a species of small mussel, and palai rinuak, a type of small fish. One method of preparing palai rinuak is to grill a mixture of the fish along with coconut and spices, the lake is used for aquaculture, using karamba floating net cages. The technique was introduced in 1992, and by 1997 there were over 2,000 cage units with over 600 households engaged, each cage may have 3-4 production cycles each year. There is evidence of pollution around some karamba area, on the edge of the lake, the landuse includes rice fields in the swamps and the lower slopes. The villages are bordered uphill by a belt of forestlike tree gardens. The tree gardens include three typical components, Fruit trees including durian, jack fruit, cempedak, rambutan, langsat, golden berries, timber species including Toona sinensis and Pterospermum javanicum. Spice trees including cinnamon, coffee, nutmeg and cardamum, the first president of Indonesia, Sukarno, visited the area in early June 1948. A pantun he wrote about the lake reads, Jangan dimakan arai pinang, Jangan datang ke Ranah Minang, Kalau tidak singgah ke Maninjau
4.
Crater lake
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Sometimes lakes which form inside calderas are called caldera lakes, but often this distinction is not made. Crater lakes covering active volcanic vents are known as volcanic lakes, and the water within them is often acidic, saturated with volcanic gases. For example, the lake of Kawah Ijen in Indonesia has a pH of under 0.5. Lakes located in dormant or extinct volcanoes tend to have water. Crater lakes form as the depression, within the crater rim, is filled by water. The water may come from precipitation, groundwater circulation or melted ice and its level rises until an equilibrium is reached between the rates of incoming and outgoing water. Sources of water loss singly or together may include evaporation, subsurface seepage, if the volcanic dam portion erodes rapidly or fails catastrophically, the occurrence produces a breakout or outburst flood. With changes in environmental conditions over time, the occurrence of floods is common to all natural dam types. A well-known crater lake, which bears the name as the geological feature, is Crater Lake in Oregon. It is located in the caldera of Mount Mazama and it is the deepest lake in the United States with a depth of 594 m. Crater Lake is fed solely by falling rain and snow, with no inflow or outflow at the surface, and hence is one of the clearest lakes in the world. The highest volcano in the world,6, 893-m Ojos del Salado in Chile, has a permanent crater lake about 100 m in diameter at an elevation of 6,390 m on its eastern side. This is most likely the highest lake of any kind in the world, due to their unstable environments, some crater lakes exist only intermittently. Hence, making Lake Toba the largest crater lake in the world, while many crater lakes are picturesque, they can also be deadly. Gas discharges from Lake Nyos suffocated 1,800 people in 1986, example of such impact crater lakes include Manicouagan in Canada, Lake Bosumtwi in Ghana and Siljan in Sweden. More rarely they can also fill craters caused by artificial explosions, lava lake Volcanic crater Caldera Types of volcanic eruptions Maar Atoll Impact crater Delmelle, Pierre, Bernard, Alain. Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, kusakabe, Minoru, ed. Geochemistry of Crater Lakes. California Davis Crater Lake National Park documentation in Building Oregon, Architecture of Oregon & the Pacific Northwest archive World Volcanic Lakes Map
5.
Paragliding
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Paragliding is the recreational and competitive adventure sport of flying paragliders, lightweight, free-flying, foot-launched glider aircraft with no rigid primary structure. The pilot sits in a harness suspended below a fabric wing comprising a number of interconnected baffled cells. Wing shape is maintained by the lines, the pressure of air entering vents in the front of the wing. Despite not using an engine, paragliders flight can last many hours and cover many hundreds of kilometers, by skillful exploitation of sources of lift, the pilot may gain height, often climbing to altitudes of a few thousand meters. Jalbert advanced governable gliding parachutes with multi-cells and controls for lateral glide, in 1954, Walter Neumark predicted a time when a glider pilot would be able to launch himself by running over the edge of a cliff or down a slope. Whether on a holiday in Skye or ski-ing in the Alps. In 1961, the French engineer Pierre Lemoigne produced improved parachute designs that led to the Para-Commander, the PC had cutouts at the rear and sides that enabled it to be towed into the air and steered – leading to parasailing/parascending. He filed US Patent 3131894 on January 10,1963, about that same time, David Barish was developing the sail wing for recovery of NASA space capsules – slope soaring was a way of testing out. After tests on Hunter Mountain, New York, in September 1965, authors Patrick Gilligan and Bertrand Dubuis wrote the first flight manual, The Paragliding Manual in 1985, officially coining the word paragliding. These developments were combined in June 1978 by three friends, Jean-Claude Bétemps, André Bohn and Gérard Bosson, from Mieussy, Haute-Savoie, Bohn followed him and glided down to the football pitch in the valley 1000 metres below. From the 1980s, equipment has continued to improve, and the number of paragliding pilots, the first Paragliding World Championship was held in Verbier, Switzerland, in 1987, though the first officially sanctioned FAI World Championship was held in Kössen, Austria, in 1989. Europe has seen the greatest growth in paragliding, with France alone currently registering over 25,000 active pilots, the paraglider wing or canopy is usually what is known in aeronautical engineering as a ram-air airfoil. Such wings comprise two layers of fabric that are connected to supporting material in such a way as to form a row of cells. By leaving most of the open only at the leading edge, incoming air keeps the wing inflated. When inflated, the wings cross-section has the typical teardrop aerofoil shape, modern paraglider wings are made of high-performance non-porous materials such as ripstop polyester or nylon fabric. In some modern paragliders, especially wings, some of the cells of the leading edge are closed to form a cleaner aerodynamic profile. Holes in the internal ribs allow a flow of air from the open cells to these closed cells to inflate them, and also to the wingtips. The pilot is supported underneath the wing by a network of suspension lines and these start with two sets of risers made of short lengths of strong webbing
6.
Christiaan Benjamin Nieuwenhuis
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Christiaan Benjamin Nieuwenhuis, known as C. B. Nieuwenhuis, was a photographer in the Dutch East Indies. He was born in Amsterdam in 1863 and his surname was Niewenhuis. He volunteered for the militia in Batavia, Java in December 1883 for a six year stint as a member of the Royal Military Band, in December 1889, he extended his contract for one more year. He left the army in December 1890, in Batavia, he seemed to have worked at the Koene & Co. photo-studio and later left to Padang on West-Sumatra where he founded his own photo studio in February 1891. He died in Padang in April 1922
7.
Mount Merapi
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Mount Merapi, Gunung Merapi, is an active stratovolcano located on the border between Central Java and Yogyakarta, Indonesia. It is the most active volcano in Indonesia and has erupted regularly since 1548, smoke can often be seen emerging from the mountaintop, and several eruptions have caused fatalities. Pyroclastic flow from an explosion killed 27 people on 22 November 1994, mostly in the town of Muntilan. Another large eruption occurred in 2006, shortly before the Yogyakarta earthquake, in light of the hazards that Merapi poses to populated areas, it has been designated as one of the Decade Volcanoes. On 25 October 2010 the Indonesian government raised the alert for Mount Merapi to its highest level, people living within the range of a 20 km zone were told to evacuate. On the afternoon of 25 October 2010 Mount Merapi erupted lava from its southern and southeastern slopes, the mountain was still erupting on 30 November 2010, but due to lowered eruptive activity on 3 December 2010 the official alert status was reduced to level 3. The volcano is now 2930 metres high,38 metres lower than before the 2010 eruptions, after a large eruption in 2010 the characteristic of Mount Merapi was changed. On 18 November 2013 Mount Merapi burst smoke up to 2,000 meters high, researchers said that this eruption occurred due to combined effect of hot volcanic gases and abundant rainfall. The name Merapi could be translated as the Mountain of Fire. The etymology of the came from Meru-Api, from the Javanese combined words, Meru means mountain, refer to mythical mountain of Gods in Hinduism. Merapi is the youngest in a group of volcanoes in southern Java and it is situated at a subduction zone, where the Indo-Australian Plate is subducting under the Sunda Plate. Since then, eruptions have become more explosive, with viscous andesitic lavas often generating lava domes, dome collapse has often generated pyroclastic flows, and larger explosions, which have resulted in eruption columns, have also generated pyroclastic flows through column collapse. Typically, small eruptions occur every two to three years, and larger ones every 10–15 years or so, notable eruptions, often causing many deaths, have occurred in 1006,1786,1822,1872, and 1930. Thirteen villages were destroyed in the one, and 1400 people killed by pyroclastic flows. The very large eruption in 1006 is claimed to have covered all of central Java with ash, the volcanic devastation is claimed to have led to the collapse of the Hindu Kingdom of Mataram, however, the evidence from that era is insufficient for this to be substantiated. In April 2006, increased seismicity at more regular intervals and a bulge in the volcanos cone indicated that fresh eruptions were imminent. Authorities put the volcanos neighboring villages on high alert and local residents prepared for a likely evacuation, on 19 April smoke from the crater reached a height of 400 metres, compared to 75 metres the previous day. On 23 April, after nine surface tremors and some 156 multifaced quakes signalled movements of magma, some 600 elderly, by early May, active lava flows had begun
8.
Minangkabau people
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Minangkabau people, also known as Minang, is an ethnic group indigenous to the Minangkabau Highlands of West Sumatra, Indonesia. This custom is called Lareh Bodi Caniago and is known as Adat perpatih in Malaysia, today 4.5 million Minangs live in the homeland of West Sumatra, while about 4.5 million more are scattered throughout many Indonesian and Malay Peninsular cities and towns. The Minangkabau are strongly Islamic, but also follow their ethnic traditions, the Minangkabau adat was derived from animist and Hindu-Buddhist beliefs before the arrival of Islam, and remnants of animist beliefs still exist even among some practising Muslims. The present relationship between Islam and adat is described in the tradition founded upon Islamic law, Islamic law founded upon the Quran. As one of the worlds most populous matrilineal ethnicity, Minangkabau gender dynamics have been studied by anthropologists. With the arrival of the Dutch and other Muslim groups, the traditions have gradually influenced by both western and conservative Islamic thought. Based on the Raffles vision, Minangkabau is believed to have been the cradle of the Malay race and their West Sumatran homelands was the seat of the Pagaruyung Kingdom and the location of the Padri War. The name Minangkabau is thought to be a conjunction of two words, minang and kabau, there is a legend that the name is derived from a territorial dispute between the Minangkabau and a neighbouring prince. To avoid a battle, the local people proposed a fight to the death between two water buffalo to settle the dispute, the prince agreed and produced the largest, meanest, most aggressive buffalo. The Minangkabau produced a hungry baby buffalo with its small horns ground to be as sharp as knives, seeing the adult buffalo across the field, the baby ran forward, hoping for milk. The big buffalo saw no threat in the buffalo and paid no attention to it. But when the baby thrust his head under the big belly, looking for an udder, the sharpened horns punctured and killed the bull, and the Minangkabau won the contest. The roofline of traditional houses in West Sumatra, called Rumah Gadang, curve upward from the middle and end in points, until the 20th century the majority of the Sumatran population lived in the highlands. The highlands are well suited for human habitation, with fresh water, fertile soil, a cool climate. It is probable that wet rice cultivation evolved in the Minangkabau Highlands long before it appeared in parts of Sumatra. By the 16th century, the time of the report after the reign of Adityawarman. They were the King of the World, the King of Adat, and the King of Religion, the Minangkabau kings were charismatic or magical figures, but did not have much authority over the conduct of village affairs. It was around the 16th century that Islam started to be adopted by the Minangkabau, the first contact between the Minangkabau and western nations occurred with the 1529 voyage of Jean Parmentier to Sumatra
9.
Javanese people
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The Javanese are an ethnic group native to the Indonesian island of Java. With approximately 100 million people, they form the largest ethnic group in Indonesia and they are predominantly located in the central to eastern parts of the island. There are also significant numbers of people of Javanese descent in most Provinces of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Suriname, Saudi Arabia, the Javanese ethnic group has many sub-groups, such as the Mataram, Cirebonese, Osing, Tenggerese, Samin, Naganese, Banyumasan, etc. A majority of the Javanese people identify themselves as Muslims, with a minority identifying as Christians, Hindu and Buddhist influences arrived through trade contacts with the Indian subcontinent. Hindu and Buddhist - traders and visitors, arrived in the 5th century, the Hindu, Buddhist and Javanese faiths blended into a unique local philosophy. The cradle of Javanese culture is described as being in Kedu. The earliest Sanjaya and Sailendra dynasties had their base there. The move was most likely caused by the eruption of Merapi and/or invasion from Srivijaya. The major spread of Javanese influence occurred under King Kertanegara of Singhasari in the late 13th century, the expansionist king launched several major expeditions to Madura, Bali in 1284, Borneo and most importantly to Sumatra in 1275. Following the defeat of the Melayu Kingdom, Singhasari controlled trade in the Strait of Malacca, Singhasari dominance was cut short in 1292 by Kediris rebellion under Jayakatwang, killing Kertanegara. However, Jayakatwangs reign as king of Java soon ended as he was defeated by Kertanegaras son-in-law, Raden Wijaya would later establish Majapahit near the delta of the Brantas River in modern-day Mojokerto, East Java. Kertanegara policies were continued by the Majapahits under King Hayam Wuruk. Various kingdoms of Java were actively involved in the trade in the sea route of the Silk Road. Although not major producers, these kingdoms were able to stockpile spice by trading for it with rice. Majapahit is usually regarded as the greatest of these kingdoms and it was both an agrarian and a maritime power, combining wet-rice cultivation and foreign trade. The ruin of their capital can be found in Trowulan, Islam gained its foothold in port towns on Javas northern coast such as Gresik, Ampel Denta, Tuban, Demak and Kudus. The spread and proselytising of Islam among the Javanese was traditionally credited to Wali Songo, Java underwent major changes as Islam spread. Following succession disputes and civil wars, Majapahit power collapsed, after this collapse, its various dependencies and vassals broke free
