Indonesia is the world's largest archipelago and consists of over 17,000 islands, about 6,000 of which are inhabited. Almost half of the total population of more than 230 million people are Javanese.

There are about 123,000 hospital beds available. Primary health care is formed by over 7,600 health centres, 21,000 sub-centres and 7,000 mobile health centres.

The Indonesian health system is in the process of decentralising the administration, management and financing of health care from the central government to the provincial governments. The private sector is beginning to grow.