Borneo, island in the extreme southwestern part of the Pacific Ocean. It is the third largest island in the world, surpassed in size by only Greenland and New Guinea.
Borneo is situated southeast of the Malay Peninsula in the Greater Sunda Islands group of the Malay Archipelago. The island is bounded by the South China Sea to the northwest, the Sulu Sea to the northeast, the Celebes Sea to the east, and the Java Sea to the south—the latter separating Borneo from the island of Java. The Makassar Strait separates Borneo from the island of Celebes (Sulawesi) to the east and southeast, and a series of shallow seas and straits lie between Borneo and the island of Sumatra to the west.
Indonesia constitutes the largest political component of the island (in Indonesian known as Kalimantan), its territory divided into five provinces: Central Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, North Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, and West Kalimantan. Along the northwest coast and northern tip lie Sarawak and Sabah, two constituent states of Malaysia that are often collectively called East Malaysia, and between them is the Islamic sultanate of Brunei. Area (including adjacent islands), about 292,000 square miles (755,000 square km). Pop. (2015) five provinces of Kalimantan (including adjacent islands), 15,320,017; (2010) Sabah and Sarawak, 5,677,882; (2014 est.) Brunei, 411,900.
Borneo lies astride the Equator. It has a length of 830 miles (1,336 km) from northeast to southwest and a maximum breadth of 600 miles (960 km). The island is largely mountainous, although there are extensive lowlands, especially in Central Kalimantan and Sarawak, that are often swampy along the coasts. A long series of mountain ranges extend southwest across the island from Mount Kinabalu in the far northeast, which, at an elevation of 13,455 feet (4,101 metres), is the island’s greatest height and is also the tallest peak in Malaysia. Ranges in the central spine include the Crocker, the Nieuwenhuis, and the Muller mountains. The Kapuas Hulu Mountains branch westward from the central core along the border between Sarawak and West Kalimantan, and a separate and discontinuous series of ranges parallel the east and southeast coasts in East and South Kalimantan.
A large part of Borneo is drained by navigable rivers, which represent the principal and often the only lifelines of trade and commerce. The main rivers of Kalimantan are the Kapuas in the west and the Mahakam in the east. Farther north, as the island narrows, few rivers are navigable for more than 100 miles (160 km), often much less, a condition largely responsible for the northern interior of Borneo remaining, until recently, one of the least-known parts of the world. The main river of East Malaysia is the Rajang in Sarawak.
Borneo’s climate is equatorial—hot and humid with a fairly distinct division into two seasons, consisting of a wet monsoonal period (landas) between October and March and a relatively drier, calmer period of summer (tedoh) for the rest of the year. The average annual rainfall is about 150 inches (3,800 mm).
Borneo is largely covered in dense rainforest, and both the floral and the faunal populations of the island are extremely varied. There are extensive stands of teak, oak, conifers, and hardwoods of the Dipterocarpaceae family (including members the commercially valuable genus Shorea). The forests are also noted for their epiphytes and for the monster flower (Rafflesia arnoldii), the largest flower in the world. Mammals endemic to the island include the Bornean clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi) and the proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus). Other notable animals include orangutans, gibbons, and elephants, but the Sumatran rhinoceros is now extinct there. There are also a great many species of birds, insects, and fish.
People and economy
The island is sparsely inhabited by Asian standards. The population, of which more than two-thirds is in Indonesian territory, is varied. It includes non-Muslim Dayaks, Islamic Malays, Chinese, and a small minority of Europeans. The highest population densities are in South Kalimantan and in eastern, western, and northern coastal areas.
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Borneo is poor in commercial mineral resources. Gold, diamonds, antimony, mercury, gypsum, and iron have all at some time since the beginning of the 19th century been exploited on an individual producer basis, using small-scale methods. There are oil fields at Tanjung Balikpapan, in Brunei, and at more than a dozen other sites on the continental shelf off the north shore of the island. East coast development is centred on the Attaka area. Bauxite has been developed near Cape Datu in the southwest since the late 1950s, and coal has been mined in the southwest.
Generally, Borneo soils are poor, with a few exceptions of fertile volcanic areas. Rice, the staple food, is supplemented with corn (maize), cassava (manioc), cucumber, and pumpkin. Rubber is grown on small native plantations. Pepper is grown on a large scale by the resident Chinese. Newer markets are for the seeds of the shorea tree and for chicle. Coastal area exports are sago, copra, cutch (a dye extracted from mangrove bark), and marine products. Tobacco is grown in the uplands and traded to the lowlands. Experimental plantings of coffee, cocoa, and hemp have been made.
Evidence for prehistoric human occupation of Borneo has been found at Neah Cave in Sarawak, including fossil bones, stone tools, and wall and ceiling paintings. Borneo is first mentioned in Ptolemy’s Guide to Geography of about 150 ce. Roman trade beads and Indo-Javanese artifacts have been discovered that give evidence of a flourishing civilization dating to the 2nd or 3rd century ce. Three rough foundation stones with an inscription recording a gift to a Brahman priest dated from the early 5th century, found at Kutai, provide evidence of a Hindu kingdom in eastern Kalimantan. Brahmanic and Buddhist images in the Gupta style have been found in the valleys of the Kapuas and other rivers in western Kalimantan. Later Kalimantan rulers were probably feudatories of the Majapahit empire of eastern Java (c. 1293–1520). With the arrival of Islam early in the 16th century, a number of Muslim kingdoms were founded, including the Banjarmasin, Sambas, Sukadana, and Landak. The Sukadana rulers owed allegiance to the Muslim Mataram kingdom of Java.
Modern European knowledge of Borneo dates from travelers who passed through Southeast Asia in the 14th century. The first recorded European visitor was the Franciscan friar Odoric of Pordenone, who visited Talamasim on his way from India to China in 1330. The Portuguese, followed by the Spanish, established trading relations on the island early in the 16th century. At the beginning of the 17th century the Portuguese and Spanish trade monopoly was broken by the Dutch, who, intervening in the affairs of the Muslim kingdoms, succeeded in replacing Mataram influence with their own. The coastal strip along the South China and Sulu seas was long oriented toward the Philippines to the northeast and was often raided by Sulu pirates. British interests, particularly in the north and west, diminished that of the Dutch. The Brunei sultanate was an Islamic kingdom that at one time had controlled the whole island but by the 19th century ruled only in the north and northwest. In 1841 Sarawak was split away on the southwest, becoming an independent kingdom ruled by the Brooke Raj. North Borneo (later Sabah) to the northeast was obtained by a British company to promote trade and suppress piracy, but it was not demarcated until 1912. Those losses left a much-reduced Brunei, which became a British protectorate in 1888.
During World War II the Japanese invasions of Borneo (1941–42) quickly eliminated the token British and Dutch forces on the island, which was not retaken until 1945. In July 1946 both Sarawak and North Borneo were made British crown colonies. In Dutch Borneo a strong nationalist sentiment developed and led to fighting between Indonesian and Dutch forces as the latter attempted to reimpose Netherlands control. Sovereignty passed to the Indonesians in 1949, and in 1950 a new constitution proclaimed Dutch Borneo part of the Republic of Indonesia.
The British government relinquished its sovereignty over Sabah and Sarawak in 1963, when those territories joined the Malaysian federation. That marked the commencement of Indonesian hostilities in the form of guerrilla raids across the border. Those raids ceased by agreement in 1966. Except for the period of Japanese occupation, Brunei remained a British protectorate until 1983. It became fully independent on January 1, 1984.