Land And Labour In Indonesia

Abstract

With a total land area of 1,904,000 square kilo-meters Indonesia in 1961 (population 97.0 million) had a population density of 51 per sq.km. The two most densely populated islands are Java (Madura included) and Bali resp. 477 and 321 per sq.km. on resp. 7% and 0.3% of Indonesia's total land area. Two other areas of above average densities are: Western Nusa-Tenggara (Lombok and Sumbawa, esp. the first) with 90 and North-Sumatra with 70 per sq.km. The high densities are based on the more intensive land-use of irrigated lands ("sawah") and higher soil fertility of young volcanic origin: Java with 26%, Bali with 21% in "sawah" while the "outer islands" as a whole had less than 1% of sawah out of total area in 1958. More revealing are agricultural density figures: Java with 91,260 sq.km. of cultivated land and 63.0 million people in 1961 had 700 people per sq.km. of cultivated land, while the "outon islands" with 34.0 million and 124,380 sq.km. of cultivated land had 280 people per sq.km. of cultivated land. For Java with a population of 74.7 million in 1970 and an agricultural density of 820 per sq.km. we have a "high" to "extreme pressure" on the land. In fact per sq.km. of "sawah land" Java in 1930 already had a 1,248 people-density, compared to its 535 people per sq.km. cultivated land and only 316 people per sq.km. of total area in the same year!