Changing Ethnic Composition in Indonesia: 2000-2010

In 2000 the Government of Indonesia made a political breakthrough by allowing its statistical agency to collect and publish data on ethnicity in its population census. The data in the census is the first statistics on ethnicity in Indonesia since its independence in 1945. Earlier statistics was collected during the colonial time in 1930. The 2010 population census continued the initiative, collecting and publishing the statistics on ethnicity. We utilize the coded raw data of 2010 population census to produce and analyse the first statistics on ethnic composition in Indonesia in 2010. We evaluate its changes during 2000-2010. We also calculate and discuss the first statistics on the religion and language of each of the ethnic groups. Because of space limitation, we focus on the fifteen largest ethnic groups, covering 84.89 percent of total Indonesian citizens in Indonesia in 2010. We utilize our New Classification of ethnic groups in Indonesia, which is a useful guide for anybody who wants to study Indonesia’s ethnicity using the 2010 population census.