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Batam is one of the islands in the Riau Islands province of Indonesia, 415 km², with about 600,000 inhabitants, of whom about 85% are Malay and 14% are Chinese.
About 45 minutes by ferry from Singapore it has grown from a small village into one of Indonesia's industrial centres at first at Batamindo, on 320 ha, but now on more than 20 centres for 175,000 workers due to its proximity with Singapore and Johor.
The principal town is Nagoya, named, during the Japanese occupation, after the city in Japan.
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