Aviation in Indonesia
Aviation in Indonesia serves as a critical means of connecting the thousands of islands throughout the archipelago. Indonesia is the largest archipelagic country in the world, extending from east to west and from north to south, comprising 13,466 islands, with 922 of those permanently inhabited. With an estimated population of over 255 million people — making it the world's fourth-most-populous country — and also due to the growth of the middle-class, the boom of low-cost carriers in the recent decade, and overall economic growth, many domestic travellers shifted from land and sea transport to faster and more comfortable air travel. Indonesia is widely regarded as an emerging market for air travel in the region. Between 2009 and 2014, the number of Indonesian air passengers increased from 27,421,235 to 94,504,086, an increase of over threefold.
Names of Indonesia
"Indonesia" derives from the Latin and Greek "Indus" (Ἰνδός), and the Greek "nésos" (νῆσος), meaning "island". The name dates to the 18th century, far predating the formation of independent Indonesia. In 1850, George Windsor Earl, an English ethnologist, proposed the terms "Indunesians" — and, his preference, "Malayunesians" — for the inhabitants of the "Indian Archipelago or Malayan Archipelago". In the same publication, a student of Earl's, James Richardson Logan, used "Indonesia" as a synonym for "Indian Archipelago". However, Dutch academics writing in East Indies publications were reluctant to use "Indonesia". Instead, they used the terms "Malay Archipelago" ("Maleische Archipel"); the "Netherlands East Indies" ("Nederlandsch Oost Indië"), popularly "Indië"; "the East" ("de Oost"); and "Insulinde".