Borneo
Sitting astride the Equator north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and east of Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula at the geographic centre of Island Southeast Asia, Borneo (a.k.a. Kalimantan) is the world's third-largest island — behind Greenland and New Guinea — with an area of 748,168 square kilometres.
With the South China Sea and the Sulu Sea to the north, the Celebes Sea to the east, and the Java Sea to the south, Borneo was part of Sundaland until rising sea levels isolated the island at the end of the last ice age.
Archaeological evidence suggests humans have inhabited the island for more than 65,000 years, with hundreds of different groups, each with its own culture and language, loosely grouped as Dayaks. After trading ports emerged along the coast in the pre-colonial era, the Javanese empire of Majapahit, the Sultanate of Sulu, and the Sultanate of Brunei controlled most of their coasts; meanwhile, the interior remained largely beyond their control.
The colonial era saw Borneo divided between the British on the northeastern coast and the Dutch, who controlled the rest of the island. After a brief Japanese occupation during World War II, the Dutch portion — about 73% of the island — became Indonesian Kalimantan. The British portion became the Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah in the early 1960s, while the former British protectorate of Brunei became a sovereign state occupying about 1% of the island.
Borneo’s climate is equatorial—hot and humid — with a wet monsoonal period between October and March, and a relatively drier weather through the rest of the year. Still, an average annual rainfall of around 3,800 mm means northern Australia's distinct wet and dry seasons do not apply here..Predictably, Borneo is largely covered by dense rainforest, which includes extensive stands of teak, oak, conifers, and commercially valuable hardwoods, with extensive mangroves on the coastal lowland.
