Kalimantan () is the

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

n portion of the island of

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and e ...

. It constitutes 73% of the island's area. The non-Indonesian parts of Borneo are

Brunei Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely surrounded by th ...

and East Malaysia. In

, "Kalimantan" refers to the whole island of

. In 2019, President of Indonesia

Joko Widodo Joko Widodo (; born 21 June 1961), popularly known as Jokowi, is an Indonesian politician and businessman who is the 7th and current president of Indonesia. Elected in July 2014, he was the first Indonesian president not to come from an elit ...

proposed that Indonesia's capital be moved to Kalimantan, and in January 2022 Indonesian legislature approved the proposal. The shift is expected to take up to 10 years.

Etymology

The name ''Kalimantan'' is derived from the

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...

word ''Kalamanthana'', which means "burning weather island", or island with a very hot temperature, referring to its hot and humid

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...

climate. It consists of the two words '' kal ' ("time, season, period") and ''manthan ' ("boiling, churning, burning"). The indigenous people of the eastern region of Borneo referred to their island as ''Pulu K'lemantan'' or "Kalimantan" when the sixteenth century Portuguese explorer Jorge de Menezes made contact with them. Its association with the island and its people has also been attributed to British scientist and colonial administrator Charles Hose from the early 20th century.

Area

The Indonesian territory makes up 73% of the island by area, and 72.1% of its 2020 population of 23,053,723 (the population was 13,772,543 at the 2010 Census of Indonesia, and 16,625,796 at the 2020 Census).Badan Pusat Statistik, Jakarta, 2021. The non-Indonesian parts of Borneo are of

(460,345 in 2020) and East Malaysia (5,967,582 in 2020), the latter comprising the states of

Sabah Sabah () is a state of Malaysia located in northern Borneo, in the region of East Malaysia. Sabah borders the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the southwest and the North Kalimantan province of Indonesia to the south. The Federal Territory ...

(3,418,785) and

Sarawak Sarawak (; ) is a state of Malaysia. The largest among the 13 states, with an area almost equal to that of Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak is located in northwest Borneo Island, and is bordered by the Malaysian state of Sabah to the northeast, ...

(2,453,677), and the federal territory of Labuan (95,120). The region within Indonesia is also known as Indonesian Borneo. Kalimantan's total area is .

Administrative divisions

Kalimantan is now divided into five provinces. It was administered as one province between 1945 and 1956, but in 1956 it was split into three provinces - East Kalimantan,

South Kalimantan South Kalimantan ( id, Kalimantan Selatan) is a province of Indonesia. It is the smallest province in Kalimantan, the Indonesian territory of Borneo. The provincial capital was Banjarmasin until 15 February 2022 when it was legally moved to B ...

and West Kalimantan; then in 1957, the province of Central Kalimantan was created when it was split away from the existing South Kalimantan. There remained four provinces until 25 October 2012, when

North Kalimantan North Kalimantan ( id, Kalimantan Utara) is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the northernmost of Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo. North Kalimantan borders the Malaysian states of Sabah to the north and Sarawak ...

was split off from East Kalimantan. ^{* excluding North Kalimantan, split off from East Kalimantan with resulting population and area loss for the 2015 census.}

Demographics

Ethnic groups

Number of the largest population of ethnic groups according to the 2010 census:

Religion