South Kalimantan is one of four Indonesian provinces in Kalimantan - the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo. The provincial capital is Banjarmasin.

The province has a population of 2.97 million (As of 2000 census).

Regencies

There are 11 regencies in South Kalimantan as listed below with their capitals:

Balangan (Paringin)

Banjar (Martapura)

Barito Kuala (Marabahan)

Hulu Sungai Selatan (Kandangan)

Hulu Sungai Tengah (Barabai)

Hulu Sungai Utara (Amuntai)

Kota Baru (Kotabaru)

Tabalong (Tanjung)

Tanah Bumbu (Batulicin)

Tanah Laut (Pleihari)

Tapin (Rantau)

Administrative cities: Banjarbaru

History

Initially South Kalimantan was part of Central Kalimantan during early days of the Indonesian independence. However, due to the government's policy of migrating a lot of people from Java island to Kalimantan, there were religious clashes occurred between the Javanese immigrant who are mostly Muslims with the local Dayak people who are mostly Christians. Due to this problem, the government had to separate Central Kalimantan become two provinces of Central Kalimantan of Christian Dayak majority and South Kalimantan where most of the Muslim Javanese immigrants reside.