Indonesia Charts Own Territory

Travel Blog  •  Julia Ross  •  02.16.09 | 1:38 PM ET

Good news for map lovers: Indonesia has released a national atlas for the first time in the country’s history. The Jakarta Post reports that Indonesians have relied, until now, on maps published in the 1938 Netherland Indies Atlas, drawn up when the country was still a Dutch colony. The new atlas—to be published in three volumes—provides a much needed catalogue of Indonesia’s current climatic, geological and cultural characteristics. Interestingly, the first volume includes photos and satellite images of the destruction wrought by the 2004 tsunami in Banda Aceh.

“I should say it’s about time we had an official atlas. We’re very late in achieving this compared to other nations,” said Indonesia’s Research and Technology Minister. This got me thinking: Maybe publication of a national atlas should be noted alongside maternal mortality and annual GDP as a marker for development. It’s an impressive achievement, by any measure.

Tags: Maps, Asia, Indonesia, Shrinking Planet

Julia Ross is a Washington, DC-based writer and frequent contributor to World Hum. She has lived in China and Taiwan, where she was a Fulbright scholar and Mandarin student. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Time, Christian Science Monitor, Plenty and other publications. Her essay, Six Degrees of Vietnam, was shortlisted for "The Best American Travel Writing 2009."


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