JAKARTA, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia Tourism Minister Arief Yahya has praised the results of a recent pooling of 20 most beautiful countries by a prominent traveling media that ranked Indonesia the sixth for its cultural diversity and abundance of natural beauty.
Results of the pooling conducted among Rough Guides readers were published on Monday in the media's website version. Indonesia was ranked after Scotland, Canada, New Zealand, Italy and South Africa.
"The nation's huge diversity has made Indonesia exceptionally stronger," Yahya said here Tuesday.
Rough Guides noted that Indonesia was highly commended for its remarkable diversities in ethnicity, culture and languages that made the people living in over 17,000 islands speak in 500 different languages and dialects.
All those diversities have made Indonesia rich of cultural attractions, it added.
Besides that, the world's traveler reference media also noted that Indonesian volcanoes have created mesmerizing natural landscape sceneries with row of green mountains in the mist, rainforest and paddy terraces, added with beautiful beaches in the coastlines.
"It all provides abundance of resources for adventure, trekking, surfing and diving," the travel guidebook media noted.
