This map describes the geographical situation of Indonesian provinces IF each provinces are redrawn by using their population as scale. This map intended to distort the geographical situation in order to represent population of each provinces.
For example, Papua Province has the largest area among the other Indonesian provinces with total area 309.934,40 km2 (16.67% of total Indonesian land area) in contrast with its population which is only 2.833.381 inhabitants (1.19% of Indonesian population). On commonly used geographic map, the area of Papua Province looks large, but in this map the area looks tiny because of its relatively low population.
It is safe to say that in this map the population density of each provinces are equal, from Nangroe Aceh Darussalam Province to Papua Province. The larger the distortion of a province’s size means the larger the gap of its population density with Indonesian population density. In this case, distortion means the difference of the province’s size between this map and commonly used geographic map.
Infographic Map of Indonesia redrawn by using per province population as scale
Provinces in Java Island are easily recognized as the most populous provinces among Indonesian Provinces. Because of that in this map the island is the largest.
Borneo Island and Sulawesi Island are relatively smaller than either Java Island or Sumatera Island because of its relatively small population. In this islands, the most striking distortion appear in South Kalimantan Province and South Sulawesi Province, that is because the provinces have larger population density among surrounding provinces.
In this map, Papua Island is the smallest island among five main Indonesia Islands. The distortion looks huge because the population density of West Papua Province and Papua Province are the least among Indonesian Provinces. The population density of Papua Island (West Papua Province and Papua Province combined) is 8 inhabitants/km2, while population density of Indonesia (in total) is 128 inhabitants/km2.
Transmigration
Population distribution program such as transmigration of Java Island inhabitant to other islands (especially Borneo Island and Papua Island) is likely still relevant these days. One important thing is in preparing the transmigrants it is not enough with only skill provision, but also cultural provision so the knowledge transfer between transmigrants and local inhabitant can run optimally. Cultural provision also can prevent local conflict.
This is the English version of my another post
jalakiren 