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Borneo, one of the great islands of the world, situated southeast of the Malay Peninsula in the Greater Sunda group of the Malay Archipelago. The island is bounded by the South China Sea (northwest) and, clockwise, by the Sulu and Celebes seas, the Makassar Strait, and the Java Sea. The largest political segment of the island is Indonesian (until 1949 Dutch), known as Kalimantan. Along the northwest coast and northern tip lie Sarawak and Sabah (formerly North Borneo), which in 1963 joined the Malaysian federation, and between them, the Islāmic sultanate of Brunei. The population of the island in 1990 was estimated at 12,305,000, of which Kalimantan had 8,911,000, Sabah and Sarawak 3,135,000, and Brunei 259,000.
Borneo is mountainous and largely covered in dense rain forest. With a length of 830 miles (1,336 km) northeast–southwest and a maximum breadth of 600 miles (960 km), it has an area (including adjacent islands) of about 292,000 square miles (755,000 square km). A dorsal range, rising to its greatest height at 13,455-foot (4,101-metre) Mount Kinabalu, in the far northeast, extends southwest across the island into the Crocker, Nieuwenhuis, and Muller mountains.
A large part of Borneo is drained by navigable rivers, the principal and often the only lifelines of trade and commerce. Farther north, as the island narrows, few rivers are navigable for more than 100 miles (160 km), often much less, a condition largely responsible for the northern interior of Borneo remaining, until recently, one of the least-known parts of the world. The climate is equatorial—hot and humid with a fairly distinct division into two seasons, the monsoon (landas) between October and March and a relatively drier, calmer period of summer (tedoh) for the rest of the year. The average rainfall is about 150 inches (3,800 mm) a year. Both the floral and the faunal populations of Borneo are extremely varied. They include rafflesia (the largest flower in the world), the orangutan and gibbon, the clouded leopard, elephant, rhinoceros, and many insects.
The island is sparsely inhabited by Asian standards. The population, of which nearly three-fourths is in Indonesian territory, is varied. It includes the non-Muslim Dayaks, the Islāmic Malays, the Chinese, and a small minority of Europeans.
Borneo is poor in commercial mineral resources. Gold, diamonds, antimony, mercury, gypsum, and iron have all at some time since the beginning of the 19th century been exploited on an individual producer basis using small-scale methods. There are oil fields at Tanjung Balikpapan, in Brunei, and at more than a dozen other sites on the continental shelf off the north shore of the island. East coast development is centred on the Attaka area. Bauxite has been developed near Cape Datu (southwest) since 1958, and coal is mined in the southwest.
Generally, Borneo soils are poor, with a few exceptions of fertile volcanic areas. Rice, the staple food, is supplemented with corn (maize), cassava (manioc), cucumber, and pumpkin. Rubber is grown on small native plantations. Pepper is grown on a large scale by the resident Chinese. Newer markets are for the seeds of the shorea tree and for chicle. Coastal area exports are sago, copra, cutch (a dye extracted from mangrove bark), and marine products. Tobacco is grown in the uplands and traded to the lowlands. Experimental plantings of coffee, cocoa, and hemp have been made.
Borneo is first mentioned in Ptolemy’s Guide to Geography of about ad 150. Roman trade beads and Indo-Javanese artifacts have been discovered that give evidence of a flourishing civilization dating to the 2nd or 3rd century bc. Three rough foundation stones with an inscription recording a gift to a Brahman priest date from the early 5th century ad, found at Kutai, provide evidence of a Hindu kingdom in eastern Kalimantan. Brahmanic and Buddhist images in the Gupta style have been found in the valleys of the Kapuas and other rivers in western Kalimantan. Later Kalimantan rulers were probably feudatories of the Majapahit empire of eastern Java (c. 1293–1520). With the arrival of Islām early in the 16th century, a number of Muslim kingdoms were founded, including the Banjarmasin, Sambas, Sukadana, and Landak. The Sukadana rulers owed allegiance to the Muslim Mataram kingdom of Java.
Modern European knowledge of Borneo dates from travelers who passed through Southeast Asia in the 14th century. The first recorded European visitor was the Franciscan friar Odoric of Pordenone, who visited Talamasim on his way from India to China in 1330. The Portuguese, followed by the Spanish, established trading relations on the island early in the 16th century. At the beginning of the 17th century the Portuguese and Spanish trade monopoly was broken by the Dutch, who, intervening in the affairs of the Muslim kingdoms, succeeded in replacing Mataram influence with their own. The coastal strip along the South China and Sulu seas was long oriented toward the Philippines and was often raided by Sulu pirates. British interests, particularly in the north and west, diminished that of the Dutch. The Brunei sultanate was an Islāmic kingdom that at one time had controlled the whole island but by the 19th century ruled only in the north and northwest. Sarawak was split away on the southwest, becoming an independent kingdom and then a British colony; North Borneo (later Sabah) to the northeast was obtained by a British company to promote trade and suppress piracy, but was not demarcated until 1912. These losses left a much reduced Brunei, which became a British protectorate.
During World War II the Japanese invasions of Borneo (1941–42) quickly eliminated the token British and Dutch forces on the island, which was not retaken until 1945. In July 1946 both Sarawak and North Borneo were made British crown colonies. In Dutch Borneo a strong nationalist sentiment developed and led to fighting between Indonesian and Dutch forces as the latter attempted to reimpose Netherlands control. Sovereignty passed to the Indonesians in 1949, and in 1950 a new constitution proclaimed Dutch Borneo part of the Republic of Indonesia.
The British government relinquished its sovereignty over Sabah and Sarawak in 1963, when these territories joined the Malaysian federation. This marked the commencement of Indonesian hostilities in the form of guerrilla raids across the border. These raids ceased by agreement in 1966. Except for the period of Japanese occupation, Brunei was under British protection from 1888 to 1983. It became fully independent on Jan. 1, 1984.
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