Indonesia

Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, lies in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. Spread over somewhere between 13,000 and 17,000 islands, among them Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi, it is the world's largest archipelagic state and the 14th-largest country by area. It is a presidential republic of 38 provinces with its capital in Jakarta.

Ipsos places Indonesia No. 1 in its Happiness Index 2026, a survey covering 29 countries. The result stands in contrast with the World Happiness Report 2026, where Indonesia appears in 87th place with a score of 5.617, according to the full table published by the Happier Lives Institute. In the 2024 edition of that report the country was 80th of 143, as Kompas reported.

With more than 290 million inhabitants, Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world and has the largest Muslim population of any nation. More than half of its people live on Java, and the country counts hundreds of ethnic groups and more than 700 languages, a diversity summed up in the national motto Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, "unity in diversity". Its economy is the largest in Southeast Asia, and its tropical forests and seas support some of the highest levels of biodiversity on Earth.

Sources of this text: Wikipedia · Ipsos · Happier Lives Institute · Kompas