North Sumatra

North Sumatra (Indonesian: Sumatera Utara) is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the island of Sumatra, and its capital is Medan. North Sumatra is fourth most populous province in Indonesia after West Java, East Java and Central Java and the most populous Indonesian province outside Java, with over 13,5 million inhabitants in 2014.

Geography and population

The province of North Sumatra stretches across the island of Sumatra between the Indian Ocean and the Strait Malacca. It borders Aceh province on the northwest and Riau and West Sumatra provinces in the southeast. It has an area of 72,981  km². The province contains a broad, low plain along the Strait of Malacca on which the provincial capital, Medan, is located. In the south and west, the land rises to the mountain range that runs the length of Sumatra; the mountains here are dominated by Lake Toba, formed from the caldera of an ancient volcano. Several large islands in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Sumatra are currently part of North Sumatra, most notably Nias Island and the Batu Islands.

Medan

Medan (Indonesian pronunciation: [meˈdan]; Indonesian: Kota Medan) is the capital of the North Sumatra province in Indonesia. Located on the northern coast, and with 2,097,610 inhabitants at the 2010 census, Medan is the fourth largest city in Indonesia behind Jakarta, Surabaya, and Bandung; and the largest Indonesian city outside Java. Its built-up (or metro) area made of 18 municipalities or districts was home to 4,103,696 inhabitants at the 2010 census. The city is bordered by the Deli Serdang Regency to the east, south and west, and the Strait of Malacca to the north.

The city was known as Deli when it was developed by Dutch tobacco commerce after the establishment of the Deli Company. The Deli Railway was established for shipping. Rubber, tea, timber, palm oil, and sugar industries followed.

Medan has been dubbed by the Dutch as Parijs van Soematra due to the city's resemblance to Paris during the era of Dutch occupation. Lamudi, a worldwide real estate portal, recognized Medan as one among six cities in Asia to feature and preserve several colonial architectural sites, while accompanying its' growth as a metropolitan city.

Sumatra

Sumatra (Indonesian: Sumatera) is an island in western Indonesia and part of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island that is entirely in Indonesia (two larger islands, Borneo and New Guinea, are shared between Indonesia and other countries) and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km² (including adjacent islands such as the Riau Islands and Bangga Belitung Islands).

Sumatra is an elongated landmass spanning a diagonal northwest-southeast axis. The Indian Ocean borders the west, northwest, and southwest sides of Sumatra with the island chain of Simeulue, Nias and Mentawai bordering the southwestern coast. On the northeast side the narrow Strait of Malacca separates the island from the Malay Peninsula, an extension of the Eurasian continent. On the southeast the narrow Sunda Strait separates Sumatra from Java. The northern tip of Sumatra borders the Andaman Islands, while on the lower eastern side are the islands of Bangka and Belitung, Karimata Strait and the Java Sea. The Bukit Barisan mountains, which contain several active volcanoes, form the backbone of the island, while the northeast sides are outlying lowlands with swamps, mangrove and complex river systems. The equator crosses the island at its center on West Sumatra and Riau provinces. The climate of the island is tropical, hot and humid with lush tropical rain forest once dominating the landscape.

Indonesia

Coordinates: 5°S 120°E / 5°S 120°E / -5; 120

Indonesia (ⁱ/ˌɪndəˈniːʒə/ IN-də-NEE-zhə or /ˌɪndoʊˈniːziə/ IN-doh-NEE-zee-ə; Indonesian: [ɪndonesia]), officially the Republic of Indonesia (Indonesian: Republik Indonesia [rɛpublik ɪndonesia]), is a sovereign island country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. It is the largest island country in the world by the number of islands, with more than fourteen thousand islands. Indonesia has an estimated population of over 255 million people and is the world's fourth most populous country and the most populous Muslim-majority country. The world's most populous island of Java contains more than half of the country's population.

Indonesia's republican form of government includes an elected legislature and president. Indonesia has 34 provinces, of which five have Special Administrative status. Its capital city is Jakarta. The country shares land borders with Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and the Malaysian Borneo. Other neighbouring countries include Singapore, the Philippines, Australia, Palau, and the Indian territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Indonesia is a founding member of ASEAN and a member of the G-20 major economies. The Indonesian economy is the world's 16th largest by nominal GDP and the 8th largest by GDP at PPP.

North

North is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. North is one of the four cardinal directions or compass points. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west.

Etymology

The word north is related to the Old High German nord, both descending from the Proto-Indo-European unit ner-, meaning "down" (or "under"). (Presumably a natural primitive description of its concept is "to the left of the rising sun".)

The Latin word borealis comes from the Greek boreas "north wind, north", which, according to Ovid, was personified as the son of the river-god Strymon, the father of Calais and Zetes. Septentrionalis is from septentriones, "the seven plow oxen", a name of Ursa Maior. The Greek arktikos is named for the same constellation, and is the derivation of the English word "Arctic".

Other languages have sometimes more interesting derivations. For example, in Lezgian, kefer can mean both 'disbelief' and 'north', since to the north of the Muslim Lezgian homeland there are areas formerly inhabited by non-Muslim Caucasian and Turkic peoples. In many languages of Mesoamerica, "north" also means "up". In Hungarian the word for north is észak, which is derived from éjszaka ("night"), since above the Tropic of Cancer, the Sun never shines from the north.