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Tanah Sabrang and Java's Population Problem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Karl J. Pelzer
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Extract

One of the most striking features of the human geography of Indonesia is the lack of demographic balance. The overcrowded islands of Java and Madura are surrounded by the sparsely inhabited Tanah Sabrang. According to the census of 1930, Java comprised 68.7 per cent of the population but only 6.9 per cent of the area, while Tanah Sabrang accounted for 93.1 per cent of the area but for only 31.3 per cent of the total population. Whereas the over-all average population density of Indonesia was 31.9 persons per square kilometer, that of Java was 316.1 and that of Tanah Sabrang 10.7.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , February 1946 , pp. 133 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1946

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References

1 The islands Java and Madura are usually considered as a unit. For the sake of brevity we shall hereafter refer to this unit as Java.

2 Tanah Sabrang, “The Land Beyond,” includes all islands of Indonesia outside of Java and Madura, i.e. the Outer Provinces.

3 Boeke, J. H., The structure of Netherlands Indian economy (New York, 1942), p. 159Google Scholar.

4 In 1937 he said at the Congress of Agricultural and Industrial Advisers: “We may well look with anxiety upon the fact that in Java the crop balance becomes negative with every crop failure of any dimensions, and that we are only two years ahead in the race between production and population.”

5 Sitsen, P. H. W., The industrial development of the Netherlands Indies (New York, 1943)Google Scholar.

6 For a discussion of the origin of humus in tropical forest areas see: E. C. Jul. Mohr, The soils of equatorial regions with special reference to the Netherlands East Indies. Translated by R. L. Pendleton (Ann Arbor, 1944), p. 475.

7 For an analysis of this right of supreme dominion see C. van Vollenhoven, De hdonesier en zijn grand (Leiden, 1932), p. 9. An English translation may be found in Angelino, A. D. A. de Kat, Colonial policy (The Hague; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1931), vol. 2, p. 446, footnote 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 J. G. W. Lekkerkerkcr, Concessies en crfpachten voor landbowwondcmemingcn in de Buitenge-westen (Groningen, 1928), discusses the history of agricultural concessions and long leases.

9 An exception is made for Madurese colonies because Madurese are skilled cultivators of unirrigated land, or tegalans.

10 Only tracts of at least 10,000 hectares have been considered for colonization.

11 Pelzer, Karl J., Pioneer settlement in the Asiatic tropics (New York, 1945), pp. 194–198Google Scholar.

12 For a detailed description of the procedure of establishing agricultural colonies in Tanah Sabrang see Pelzer, Karl J., Pioneer settlement in the Asiatic tropics (New York, 1945)Google Scholar.