* As of 6/9/2025
1 birth
Every 7.1 seconds
1 death
Every 14.3 seconds
1 emigrant
Every 13.3 minutes
1 person
Every 14.4 seconds
Indonesia is a sovereign archipelago in Southeast Asia and the fourth most populous country on earth after China, India, and the United States.
Indonesia has more than 300 distinct ethnic and linguistic groups, although the largest and most dominant in terms of politics are the Javanese at over 40% of the population. Most Indonesians are descended from Austronesian-speaking people. Another major ethnic group are Melanesians who live on the eastern part of the country. Other major ethnic groups include: Sundanese (15.5%), Malay (2.27%), Madurese (3.03%), Batak (3.58%), Minankabau (2.73%), Betawi (2.88%), Bantenese (1.97%), Banjarese (1.74%), Balinese (1.67%), and Makasserese (1.13%)..
Chinese Indonesians account for about 3% of the population but they are influential, controlling most of the country’s wealth and commerce.
In addition to this diverse population, Indonesia is also the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, as just over 87% of Indonesians declared Muslim on the 2010 census. 9.87% are Christian, 1.69% are Hindu, 0.72% are Buddhist and 0.56% practice other faiths. The Indonesian constitution grants religious freedom although the government only officially recognizes Islam, Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism.
There are more than 700 languages spoken in Indonesia. Bahasa Indonesia, a form of Malay, is the official language and is used mostly in education, media, commerce, and administration. Most people in Indonesia actually tend to speak other languages as their primary language, however.
The median age of the population in Indonesia is approximately 30.2 years of age, 42.4% of the population between 25 and 54 years of age. The 0-14 age group is currently just over 25%, strengthening the number of youths that will come into the workforce as the current workers move past working age.
In terms of accessibility to clean water and sanitation facilities, approximately 87.4% have improved access to clean drinking water while 12.6% still struggle. Only 60.8% have improved access to sanitation while 39.2% still have unimproved accessibility to sanitation services. However, Indonesia maintains a fairly high literacy rate of 95.4% among the entire population with males having a slight advantage of roughly 4% over females.
Another interesting statistic involves the ages of the Indonesian population and although these figures date from the previous national census of 2000, they still tell an interesting story. Of the total 2000 population, 27.3% were aged between 0 and 14 years, 66.5% between 15 and 64, while just 6.1% of the population of Indonesia were aged over 65.
The birth rate was healthy compared to the death rate too and based on a 2012 estimate, it’s believed that there are 17.76 births per 1,000 people compared to just 6.28 deaths. Add in a loss of 1.08 people to net migration and you have a total annual growth rate of 1.04%.
