Every time you log in to your Indonesian Online account, the IP address from which you access the site is recorded. This allows us to see from which countries our learners connect.
While we do not systematically track login locations over long periods, recent activity offers an interesting snapshot. Within just four days, users logged in from 14 countries across four continents.
By and large, our customers are fairly equally divided between Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Americas. But within these geopolitical regions, there are large differences. In the Americas, almost all of our customers are from Canada and the USA, and almost none from Latin America.
I am not aware that we have a single customer from Latin America, Africa, or South Asia, nor have I seen an IP address pointing to one of the countries of those regions. The same is true for the dozens of countries where Arabic, Persian, and Turkic languages are spoken.
And that brings us to a related topic. In what countries is Indonesian taught? This question is difficult to answer as the picture constantly changes. Indonesian is taught in less than 60 research universities.
We found 13 countries that have at least one university that teaches Indonesian. Most are located in Asia, followed by Australia and Europe:
Australia: The Global Centre for Indonesian Language Studies
By far the most important country for Indonesian language education is Australia. Indonesian is taught not only at most major Australian universities, but also in many secondary schools, and in some areas even in primary and intermediate schools.
An estimated 100,000 students study Indonesian each year in Australia. For comparison, the entire United States has fewer than 500 students studying Indonesian.
Indonesian in Europe
In Europe, Germany stands out clearly as the strongest centre for Indonesian studies. Indonesian is taught at universities in Berlin, Bonn, Cologne, Constance, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Leipzig, and Passau, and many of these universities afford full professors in Indonesian. Unfortunately Indonesian language studies are rare outside of Germany. One should think that teaching and learning Indonesian is widespread in the Netherlands, but there is only one Indonesian language program at Leiden University. In France, Indonesian is taught in Paris and La Rochelle, and in Russia in Moscow and Leningrad. Among the remaining 40 European countries, Indonesian is only taught at one university in Naples, Italy.
Indonesian in North America
In the United States, eight universities currently offer permanent Indonesian language instruction: UC Berkeley, UCLA, Cornell, the University of Michigan, Yale, Ohio University, Northern Illinois University, and the University of Wisconsin.
The University of Hawai‘i, once one of the principal centres of Indonesian studies in the United States, now offers Indonesian only intermittently and has not provided advanced-level courses for many years.
Historically, many of these programs were led by full professors specialising in Indonesian. Today, there is no longer a single full professor of Indonesian language in the United States.
Indonesian in Asia
Despite Indonesia’s geographic location, Indonesian is taught in surprisingly few Asian countries: China, Israel, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Thailand. China alone reportedly has more than ten universities offering Indonesian language instruction.
A Surprisingly Limited Global Footprint
Considering that Indonesian is one of the world’s major languages, its international academic presence remains relatively modest.
Outside Australia, Germany, and a handful of specialised centres, opportunities to study Indonesian remain limited—making online learning platforms increasingly important for learners worldwide.
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