SUMATRA

SUMATRA is and island in western Indonesia. It is the largest of the East Indian islands after Borneo. It stretches SE. across the Equator between the Malay Peninsula (from whose SW. coast it is separated by the Strait of Malacca) to Java (Strait of Sunda separating them); has an extreme length of 1115 m., and an area more than three times that of England; is mountainous, volcanic, covered in central parts by virgin forest, abounds in rivers and lakes, and possesses an exceptionally rich flora and peculiar fauna; rainfall is abundant; some gold and coal are worked, but the chief products are rice, sugar, coffee, tobacco, petroleum, pepper, &c.

Formerly, the island was mainly under Dutch control, but much of the unexplored centre was in the hands of savage tribes who had waged continual warfare with their European invaders. Padang was the official Dutch capital.