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LIPPO CIKARANG - Indonesia is to count it's islands - all of them - in the coming three years. Currently estimates of the actual number of islands in the Indonesian archipelago vary from 14,000 to some 17,500 islands, but the exact number is not known. Indonesia is to catalog all islands, including giving them a name and registration number for reporting them to the United Nations.
“We need to create a record of our islands. This is an effort to save Indonesia for the future,” said Numberi, the minister of Maritime Affairs and Fishery. Priority will be those islands that are most remote in the archipelago, because they are representing borders with other countries. The current number of - officially, but estimated - islands is 17,480. This number was counted via satellite survey only.
The minister told that it was very likely that the number of islands might be far less than currently thought. More accurate methods of counting the islands are available now however. Numberi said that an eventual count of 15,000 islands should be seen as really good. Many of the islands are nothing more than large rocks or sand bars covered by mangrove forests.
It is very likely that some of these rocks and sand bars have disappeared since they were counted the last time. Rising sea levels and geological events like earthquakes might have caused these changes. "Sand banks and atolls are not seen as real islands and others have submerged over time," Numberi told. Numberi said that the government had registered almost 5,000 islands with the UN Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN).
The Banda Islands in the Maluku region of Indonesia. © indahnesia.com / BigStockPhoto
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