Riau

Riau is a province of Indonesia, located in the centre and eastern coast of Sumatra along the Strait of Malacca. Until 2004 the province included the offshore Riau Islands, a large group of small islands (of which the principal islands are Batam and Bintan) located east of Sumatra Island and south of Singapore, before these islands were split off as Riau Islands Province in July 2004. The provincial capital of Riau Province and its largest city is Pekanbaru. Other major cities include Dumai, Selat Panjang, Bagansiapiapi, Bengkalis, Bangkinang, Rengat and Siak Sri Indrapura. Riau is currently one of the richest provinces in Indonesia and is rich with natural resources, particularly petroleum, natural gas, rubber, palm oil and fiber plantations. However extensive logging has led to a massive decline in forest cover from 78% in 1982 to only 33% in 2005.[3] This has been further reduced an average of 160,000 hectares per year on average, leaving 22%, or 2.45 million hectares left as of 2009.[4] Deforestation for palm oil and paper has led to not only perennial serious haze over the province, but in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and intensifying flooding and landslides. Kuala Lumpur and surrounds has been sent into "unhealthy" air quality[5][6] levels again in mid 2012 from Indonesian haze originating in Riau. Since the 1970s, much of Indonesia has experienced declining population growth rates. Riau has been a significant exception, with increasing rates every decade since 1970 to a 4.35 percent annual rise for the 1990s.[7] The provincial population is 5,543,031 (as at the 2010 census).[1] Riau Province is home to various dialects of the Malay and Chinese language. The dominant language used by the Malay population is Malay. The Chinese population (predominantly Hokkien) speak a variety of Chinese dialects, the most common being Min Nan, originating from the southern part of Fujian province in the south-eastern part of China. [edit]Riau Malay The dialect of Malay spoken in Riau Province is considered by linguists to have one of the least complex grammars among the languages of the world, apart from creoles, possessing neither noun declensions, temporal distinctions, subject/object distinctions, nor singular/plural distinction. For example, the phrase Ayam makan (lit. 'chicken eat') can mean, in context, anything from 'the chicken is eating', to 'I ate some chicken', 'the chicken that is eating' and 'when we were eating chicken'.[8] A possible reason for this is that Riau Indonesian has been used as a lingua franca for communication between different people in this area during its history, and extensive foreign-language speaker use of this kind tends to simplify the grammar of a language used.[9] It is sometimes supposed that Riau Malay is the basis for the modern national language, Indonesian. However, that is instead based on Classical Malay, the court language of Riau, which is distinct from the local dialect.[10] [edit]Administrative division Riau in Sumatra. Lithography to an original watercolor by J.C. Rappard. ca. 1883-1889. Riau Province is subdivided into 10 regencies and 2 autonomous cities, listed below with their areas and populations at the 2000 and (provisionally) 2010 Censuses.