Society and Culture Atlas

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Social Groups

Javanese

East and Southeast Asian Peoples

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The Javanese are the largest ethnic group in Indonesia and one of the largest in Southeast Asia, native to the island of Java, with a documented history of centralized court cultures (including the historical Mataram Sultanate and its successor courts of Yogyakarta and Surakarta) that produced an extensively studied tradition of gamelan music, wayang shadow-puppet theater and batik textile art. Javanese social life traditionally distinguishes refined court-derived etiquette and a stratified system of linguistic speech levels (ngoko, madya and krama) that mark social status and formality between speakers. Java's exceptionally high rural population density, sustained historically by intensive wet-rice cultivation, has also made Javanese transmigration to Indonesia's other islands a significant and documented feature of the group's more recent demographic history.

Facts
Group TypeSourced to the subject's own account
Ethnic group 1
Typical RegionSourced to the subject's own account
Southeast Asia (Java, Indonesia) 1
Population EstimateSourced to the subject's own account
approximately 95 to 100 million 1
Primary LanguageSourced to the subject's own account
Javanese 1
Subsistence ModeSourced to the subject's own account
Historically wet-rice (sawah) agriculture supporting some of the highest rural population densities in the world, alongside a long tradition of court-centered craft and culture. 1
Sources
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