Malay Archipelago

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Malay Archipelago
World map highlighting Malay Archipelago, with the island of New Guinea—not part of the Malay Archipelago by some definitions—in light green.
Geography
Location	Southeast Asia, Oceania
Total islands	20,000
Major islands	Borneo, Java, Luzon, Mindanao, New Guinea, Sulawesi, Sumatra
Area	>2 million km²
Administration
Brunei
Largest city	Bandar Seri Begawan
East Timor
Largest city	Dili
Indonesia
Largest city	Jakarta
Malaysia
Largest city	Kuching (NB Kuala Lumpur is larger, but it is not part of the Malay Archipelago)
Philippines
Largest city	Quezon City
Singapore
Largest city	Singapore
Demographics
Population	300+ million

The Malay Archipelago is a vast archipelago located between mainland Southeastern Asia (Indochina) and Australia. Straddling the Indian and Pacific Oceans, this group of some 20,000 islands, the world's largest archipelago by area, constitutes the territories of Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, East Timor, and most of Papua New Guinea. There are, however, arguments for excluding the last-named country for cultural and geographical reasons: Papua New Guinea is culturally quite different from the other countries in the region, and the island of New Guinea itself is geologically not part of the continent of Asia, as the islands of the Sunda Shelf are (see Australia (continent)).

The archipelago is sometimes also known as the East Indies, but some authorities apply a much broader meaning to this term by including Indochina, the Indian subcontinent, and even areas as far west as Iranian Baluchistan.

The Malay Archipelago encompasses many groups which may be considered archipelagoes in their own right. The major ones are:

The Sunda Islands
- The Greater Sunda Islands
- The Lesser Sunda Islands
The Maluku Islands
The Philippines

The archipelago's area is more than 2 million km², and its total population is more than 300,000,000+. The biggest islands in the archipelago are New Guinea (if included), Borneo, and Sumatra. The most heavily populated island is Java.

Geologically the archipelago is very interesting, being one of the most active volcanic regions in the world. Geological uplifts in the region have also produced some impressive mountains, culminating in Mount Kinabalu in Sabah with a height of 4 101 m (or Puncak Jaya in Papua at 4 884 m, if New Guinea is included).

The climate throughout the archipelago, owing to its position astride the equator, is tropical. It is notably rainier in the west than in the east, however.

The region known as Maritime Southeast Asia is more or less coextensive with the Malay Archipelago.

[edit] Maritime Southeast Asia

Maritime Southeast Asia is the name given to the island nations in Southeast Asia, collectively known as the Malay archipelago. Nations in this region include:

Malaysia - two Malaysian states are on the island of Borneo, and Labuan, a nearby island, is a Federal Territory.
Singapore - a small island nation off the coast of the Malay Peninsula.
Brunei - a small nation bordered by Malaysia and the South China Sea.
Indonesia - in the Malay archipelago; including islands such as Sumatra, Borneo, Java, and the western part New Guinea.
Papua New Guinea - the nation occupying the eastern part of New Guinea.
Philippines - a group of many islands bordered by the South China Sea and the Philippine Sea.
East Timor - the 21st century's first independent nation, shares the island Timor with Indonesia.

In terms of the demography of this region, people are predominantly from Austronesian subgroupings (with the exception of Singapore), and all correspondingly speak western Malayo-Polynesian languages. Also, this region of Southeast Asia shares more social and cultural ties with other Austronesian peoples in the Pacific than with the peoples of Mainland Southeast Asia.

Often, the mainland part of Malaysia, which is known as Malaya, is included as part of Maritime Southeast Asia in order that all the non-Oceanian Austronesian peoples can be included together in one cultural region.

The main religions in this region are Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and traditional Animism.