The parang is the Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

 equivalent of the machete

Machete

The machete is a large cleaver-like cutting tool. The blade is typically long and usually under thick. In the English language, an equivalent term is matchet, though it is less commonly known...

. Typical vegetation in South East Asia is more woody than in South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

 and the parang is therefore optimized for a stronger chopping action with a heavier blade

Blade

A blade is that portion of a tool, weapon, or machine with a cutting edge and/or a pointed tip that is designed to cut and/or puncture, stab, slash, chop, slice, thrust, or scrape animate or inanimate surfaces or materials...

 and a "sweet spot

Center of percussion

The center of percussion is the point on an object where a perpendicular impact will produce translational and rotational forces which perfectly cancel each other out at some given pivot point, so that the pivot will not be moving momentarily after the impulse....

" further forward of the handle, the blade is also beveled more obtusely to prevent it from binding in the cut. This is the same rationale and (in practical terms) the same design as the Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

n golok

Golok

right|thumb|Golok copying the Martindale No 2 designThe golok is a type of machete or broadsword originating in Southeast Asia. The word golok is of Indonesian origin but is also used in Malaysia and is known as gulok in the Philippines...

 and very similar to the Filipino

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

 bolo

Bolo knife

A bolo is a large cutting tool of Filipino origin similar to the machete, used particularly in the jungles of Indonesia, the Philippines, and in the sugar fields of Cuba...

. A parang blade is usually 30 centimetres (11.8 in) long and has a mass of no more than 0.75 kilograms (1.7 lb). The curved blade enables maximum effort to be applied when cutting timber, and the blade arrives before the knuckles, so giving them protection. A parang has three different edges, the front is very sharp and used for skinning, the middle is wider and used for chopping, and the back end (near the handle) is very fine and used for carving.

Uses

Like the machete

Machete

The machete is a large cleaver-like cutting tool. The blade is typically long and usually under thick. In the English language, an equivalent term is matchet, though it is less commonly known...

, the parang is frequently used in the jungle as well as being a tool for making housing, furniture, and tools. The parang has been noted in John "Lofty" Wiseman

Lofty Wiseman

John "Lofty" Wiseman is a British author and survival consultant, and a former member of the Special Air Service , the British special forces unit....

's SAS Survival Handbook, a leading survival book for this use.

Parang are also used as weapons, typically carried by gang members and robbers in Malaysia.
Also used by Bear Gryllis in man versus wild.