Borneo

Topography of Borneo
Geography
Location	South East Asia
Coordinates	01°N 114°E / 1°N 114°E / 1; 114Coordinates: 01°N 114°E / 1°N 114°E / 1; 114
Archipelago	Greater Sunda Islands
Area	743,330 km2 (287,001 sq mi)
Area rank	3rd
Highest elevation	4,095 m (13,435 ft)
Highest point	Kinabalu
Country
Brunei
Districts	Belait Brunei and Muara Temburong Tutong
Indonesia
Provinces	West Kalimantan Central Kalimantan South Kalimantan East Kalimantan North Kalimantan
Malaysia
States	Sabah Sarawak
Demographics
Population	18,590,000 (as of 2009)
Density	21.52 /km2 (55.74 /sq mi)
Ethnic groups	Dayak, Malays, Chinese, Banjar, Bugis, Javanese

Borneo (Indonesian: Kalimantan) is the third largest island in the world and the largest island of Asia. It is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and east of Sumatra, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia.

The island is divided among three countries: Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia. Approximately 73% of the island is Indonesian territory. The Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak in the north occupy about 26% of the island. The sovereign state of Brunei, located on the north coast, comprises about 1% of Borneo's land area. Borneo is home to one of the oldest rainforests in the world.

Geography[edit]

Mount Kinabalu

Borneo is surrounded by the South China Sea to the north and northwest, the Sulu Sea to the northeast, the Celebes Sea and the Makassar Strait to the east, and the Java Sea and Karimata Strait to the south. To the west of Borneo are the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra. To the south is Java. To the east is Sulawesi, and to the northeast, the Philippines.

With an area of 743,330 square kilometres (287,000 sq mi), it is the third-largest island in the world, which is also the largest island of the largest continent in the world (Asia). Its highest point is Mount Kinabalu in Sabah, Malaysia, with an elevation of 4,095 m (13,435 ft).^[1]

The largest river system is the Kapuas in West Kalimantan with a length of 1,143 km (710 mi). Other major rivers include the Mahakam in East Kalimantan (980 km long (610 mi)), the Barito in South Kalimantan (880 km long (550 mi)), and Rajang in Sarawak (562.5 km (349.5 mi)).

Borneo has significant cave systems. Clearwater Cave, for example, has one of the world's longest underground rivers. Deer Cave is home to over three million bats, with guano accumulated to over 100 metres (330 ft) deep.^[2]

Before sea levels rose at the end of the last Ice Age, Borneo was part of the mainland of Asia, forming, with Java and Sumatra, the upland regions of a peninsula that extended east from present day Indochina and Thailand. The South China Sea and Gulf of Thailand now submerge the former low-lying areas of the peninsula. Deeper waters separating Borneo from neighboring Sulawesi prevented a land connection to that island, creating the divide between Asian and Australia-New Guinea biological regions known as Wallace's Line.

Ecology[edit]

True-color satellite image of the island of Borneo on 14 May 2012, as taken by the Terra satellite

The Borneo rainforest is 130 million years old, making it the oldest rainforest in the world. There are about 15,000 species of flowering plants with 3,000 species of trees (267 species are dipterocarps), 221 species of terrestrial mammals and 420 species of resident birds in Borneo.^[3] There are about 440 freshwater fish species in Borneo (about the same as Sumatra and Java combined).^[4] It is the centre of evolution and radiation of many endemic species of plants and animals. The Borneo rainforest is one of the only remaining natural habitats for the endangered Bornean orangutan. It is an important refuge for many endemic forest species, including the Asian elephant, the Sumatran rhinoceros, the Bornean clouded leopard, the Hose's civet and the dayak fruit bat.

In 2010 the World Wide Fund for Nature stated that 123 species have been discovered in Borneo since the Heart of Borneo agreement was signed in 2007.^[5]

The World Wide Fund for Nature divides the island into seven distinct ecoregions. The Borneo lowland rain forests cover most of the island, with an area of 427,500 square kilometres (165,100 sq mi). Other lowland ecoregions are the Borneo peat swamp forests, the Kerangas or Sundaland heath forests, the Southwest Borneo freshwater swamp forests, and the Sunda Shelf mangroves. The Borneo montane rain forests lie in the central highlands of the island, above the 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) elevation. The highest elevations of Mount Kinabalu are home to the Kinabalu mountain alpine meadow, an alpine shrubland notable for its numerous endemic species, including many orchids.

The island historically had extensive rainforest cover, but the area shrank due to heavy logging for the Malaysian and Indonesian plywood industry. Half of the annual global tropical timber acquisition comes from Borneo. Furthermore, palm oil plantations are rapidly encroaching on the last remnants of primary rainforest. The rainforest was also greatly destroyed from the forest fires of 1997 to 1998, which were started by the locals to clear the forests for crops and perpetuated by an exceptionally dry El Niño season during that period. During the great fire, hotspots could be seen on satellite images and the haze thus created affected the surrounding countries of Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.

Sarawak announced a plan for energy production, the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy.^[6]

History[edit]

Early history[edit]

According to ancient Chinese, Indian and Japanese manuscripts, western coastal cities of Borneo had become trading ports by the first millennium.^[7] In Chinese manuscripts, gold, camphor, tortoise shells, hornbill ivory, rhinoceros horn, crane crest, beeswax, lakawood (a scented heartwood and root wood of a thick liana, Dalbergia parviflora), dragon's blood, rattan, edible bird's nests and various spices were among the most valuable items from Borneo.^[8] The Indians named Borneo Suvarnabhumi (the land of gold) and also Karpuradvipa (Camphor Island). The Javanese named Borneo Puradvipa, or Diamond Island. Archaeological findings in the Sarawak river delta reveal that the area was once a thriving trading centre between India and China from the 500's until about 1300 AD.^[8]

Dayaks, the natives of Borneo in their traditional war dress. Headhunting was an important part of Dayak culture.

One of the earliest evidence of Hindu influence in Southeast Asia were stone pillars which bear inscriptions in the Pallava script found in Kutai along the Mahakam River in East Kalimantan, dating to around the second half of the 300s AD.^[9]

By the 14th century Borneo was under the control of the Majapahit kingdom.^[10]

The Sultanate of Brunei, during its golden age from the 15th century to the 17th century, ruled a large part of northern Borneo. In 1703 (other sources say 1658), the Sultanate of Sulu received North Borneo from the Sultan of Brunei, after Sulu sent aid against a rebellion in Brunei. During the 1450s, Shari'ful Hashem Syed Abu Bakr, an Arab born in Johor, arrived in Sulu from Malacca. In 1457, he founded the Sultanate of Sulu; he then renamed himself "Paduka Maulana Mahasari Sharif Sultan Hashem Abu Bakr".

Dutch and British control[edit]

In 1842 James Brooke was granted large parts of Sarawak, as a result of helping the governor quell a local rebellion. The Brooke dynasty were to end up ruling Sarawak for a hundred years and became famous as the White Rajahs.^[11]

Raden Demang Béhé, head of the Ot-Danom-Dayaks in Ambalu (Upper-Melawi river), Central-Borneo. Photographed between 1890 and 1920.

A large log being placed on a railroad car at Batottan, British North Borneo in 1926

In the early 19th century, British and Dutch governments signed the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 to exchange trading ports under their controls and assert spheres of influence, which indirectly set apart the two parts of Borneo into British and Dutch controlled areas. China has had historical trading links with the inhabitants of the island. Some of the Chinese beads and wares found their way deep into the interior of Borneo. The Malay and Sea Dayak pirates preyed on maritime shipping in the waters between Singapore and Hong Kong from their haven in Borneo.^[12]

The British North Borneo Company controlled the territory of North Borneo (present-day Sabah) from 1882 to 1941.^[13]

World War II[edit]

During World War II, Japanese forces gained control of Borneo (1941–45). They decimated many local populations and killed Malay intellectuals. Sultan Muhammad Ibrahim Shafi ud-din II of Sambas in Kalimantan was executed in 1944. The Sultanate was thereafter suspended and replaced by a Japanese council.^[14] During the Japanese occupation, the Dayaks played a role in guerilla warfare against the occupying forces, particularly in the Kapit Division, where headhunting was temporarily revived towards the end of the war.^[15] Allied Z Special Unit provided assistance to them. After the fall of Singapore, several thousand British and Australian prisoners of war were sent to camps in Borneo. At one of the very worst sites, around Sandakan in Borneo, only six of some 2,500 prisoners survived.^[16] In 1945 the island was liberated from the Japanese.

Recent history[edit]

Borneo was the main site of the confrontation between Indonesia and Malaysia between 1962 and about 1969 in which the British Army was deployed against the Indonesians and against communist revolts to gain control of the whole area. Before the formation of Malaysian Federation, the Philippines claimed that the Malaysian state of Sabah is within their territorial rights based on historical facts of the Sultanate of Sulu's leasing agreement with the North Borneo Company.

Demographics[edit]

The demonym for Borneo is Bornean.^{[citation needed]}

Borneo has 19,800,000 inhabitants (in mid-2010), a population density of 26 inhabitants per square km. Most of the population lives in coastal cities, although the hinterland has small towns and villages along the rivers. The population mainly consists of Malays, Banjar, Chinese and Dayak ethnic groups. The Chinese, who make up 29% of the population of Sarawak and 17% of total population in West Kalimantan,^[17] originally migrated from southeastern China.^[18] The majority of the population in Kalimantan is either Muslim or practice animism. Approximately 91% of the Dayaks are Christian, a religion introduced by missionaries in the 19th century. In Central Kalimantan there is also a small Hindu minority. In the interior of Borneo are also the Penan, some of who still practice a nomadic hunter-gatherer existence. In some coastal areas of marginal settlements are also found Bajau, who were historically associated with a sea-oriented, boat-dwelling, nomadic existence. In the northwest of Borneo, the Dayak ethnic group is represented by the Iban with about 710,000 members.

Kalimantan was the focus for an intense transmigration program that financed the relocation of poor landless families from Java, Madura, and Bali. In 2001, transmigrants made up 21% of the population in Central Kalimantan.^[19] Since the 1990s, violent conflict has occurred between some transmigrant and indigenous populations; in Kalimantan, thousands were killed in fighting between Madurese transmigrants and the indigenous Dayak people.^[20]

Largest cities[edit]

The following is a list of top 20 urban areas in Borneo by population based on 2010 ^[21] statistic calculations.

Administration[edit]

Political divisions of Borneo

The island of Borneo is divided administratively by three countries. It is the only island in the world so divided:

• The Indonesian provinces of East, South, West, North and Central Kalimantan
• The Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak (the Federal Territory of Labuan is located on nearshore islands of Borneo, but not on the island of Borneo itself)
• The independent country of Brunei (main part and eastern exclave of Temburong)

¹⁾ Brunei: Census of Population 2001
²⁾ islands administered as Borneo, geologically part of Borneo, on nearshore islands (2.5 km off the main island of Borneo)
³⁾ Citypopulation.de reports on Official Decennial Censuses in 2010 for both Indonesia and Malaysia, independent estimate for Brunei.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Bowen, M. R., and T. V. Eusebio. 1982. Acacia mangium: updated information on seed collection and handling and germination testing. Seed Series No. 5. FAO/UNDP-MAL/78/009. Forest Research Centre, Sandakan, Sabah, Malaysia.
• Bowen, M.R. and Eusebio, T.V. (1982): Seed handling practices: four fast-growing hardwoods for humid tropical plantations in the eighties. Malaysian Forester Vol. 45, No. 4: 534–547
• Ghazally Ismail et al. (eds.) Scientific Journey Through Borneo Series. Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Kota Samarahan. 1996–2001. * Gudgeon, L. W. W. British North Borneo. Adam and Charles Black, London (an early well-illustrated book on "British North Borneo", now known as Sabah), 1913.
• Mathai, J., Hon, J., Juat, N., Peter, A., & Gumal, M. 2010. "Small carnivores in a logging concession in the Upper Baram, Sarawak, Borneo". Small Carnivore Conservation 42: 1–9.
• K M Wong & C L Chan. "Mt Kinabalu: Borneo's Magic Mountain." Natural History Publications, Kota Kinabalu. 1998.
• Dennis Lau. Borneo: A Photographic Journey.
• Stephen Holley. White Headhunter in Borneo. * Robert Young Pelton Borneo.
• Mel White: " Borneo's moment of truth", National Geographic Magazine, November 2008.
• Mathai, J. 2010. "Hose's Civet: Borneo's mysterious carnivore". Nature Watch 18/4: 2–8.
• Robert Young Pelton. Fielding's Borneo[1]
• Eric Hansen. Stranger in the Forest: On Foot Across Borneo.
• John Wassner. Espresso with the Headhunters: A Journey Through the Jungles of Borneo.
• Redmond O'Hanlon. Into the Heart of Borneo: An Account of a Journey Made in 1983 to the Mountains of Batu Tiban with James Fenton.
• Charles M. Francis. A Photographic Guide to Mammals of South-east Asia.
• Abdullah, MT. "Biogeography and variation of Cynopterus brachyotis in Southeast Asia." PhD thesis. The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia. 2003.
• Corbet, GB, Hill JE. The mammals of the Indomalayan region: a systematic review. Oxford University Press, Oxford. 1992.
• G.W.H. Davison, Chew Yen Fook. A Photographic Guide to Birds of Borneo.
• Hall LS, Gordon G. Grigg, Craig Moritz, Besar Ketol, Isa Sait, Wahab Marni and MT Abdullah. "Biogeography of fruit bats in Southeast Asia." Sarawak Museum Journal LX(81):191–284. 2004.
• Karim, C., A.A. Tuen and M.T. Abdullah. "Mammals." Sarawak Museum Journal Special Issue No. 6. 80: 221–234. 2004.
• Garbutt, Nick, and J. Cede Prudente. Wild Borneo: The Wildlife and Scenery of Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei, and Kalimantan. 2007.
• Mohd. Azlan J., Ibnu Maryanto, Agus P. Kartono, and MT Abdullah. "Diversity, Relative Abundance and Conservation of Chiropterans in Kayan Mentarang National Park, East Kalimantan, Indonesia." Sarawak Museum Journal 79: 251–265. 2003.
• Hall LS, Richards GC, Abdullah MT. "The bats of Niah National Park, Sarawak." Sarawak Museum Journal. 78: 255–282. 2002.

External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Borneo

• Environmental Profile of Borneo – Background on Borneo, including natural and social history, deforestation statistics, and conservation news.