Timor is an island at the south end of the Malay Archipelago, north of the Timor Sea. It is divided between the independent state of East Timor, and West Timor, belonging to the Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara.

The island's surface is 11,883 square miles (30,777 kmē). The name is a variant of timur, Malay for ?east?; it is so called because it is at the east end of a chain of islands.

Language, ethnic groups, and religion

Similar to nearby islands, most Timorese are Melanesian^[1] and anthropologists identify eleven distinct ethno-linguistic groups in Timor. The largest are the Atoni of western Timor, and the Tetum of central and eastern Timor.^[2] Most Timor indigenous Timorese languages belong to the Austronesian group of languages spoken through the Indonesian archipelago. The non-Austronesian languages are related to languages spoken in the Halmahera (in Maluku) and Western New Guinea.^[3]

The official languages of East Timor are Tetum and Portuguese, while in West Timor it is Indonesian. Indonesian is also widely spoken and understood in East Timor.

Christianity is the dominant religion throughout the island of Timor, at about 90% of the population. Roman Catholics are the majority; they outnumber Protestants in West Timor by about a 1.5:1 ratio, while in East Timor, Catholics are the vast majority of the population. Muslims and animists are most of the remainder, at about 5% each.

Geography

To the south and southeast of Timor is Oceania. To its northwest is the island of Sulawesi, and to its west, the island of Sumba. To the west-northwest of Timor are the islands of Flores and Alor, and to its northeast are the Barat Daya Islands, including Wetar.

Timor has older geology and lacks the volcanic nature of the Lesser Sunda Islands. The orientation of the main axis of the island also differs from its neighbors. These features have been explained as the result of being on the northern edge of the Indo-Australian Plate as it pushes into the South East Asia.

Flora and fauna

Timor, together with the Lesser Sunda Islands to the northwest and the smaller islands to the northeast, is covered by tropical dry broadleaf forests. Many trees are deciduous or partly deciduous, dropping their leaves during the dry season. Timor, the Barat Daya Islands, and the smaller islands to the northeast of Timor constitute the Timor and Wetar deciduous forests ecoregion.

During the Pleistocene epoch, Timor was the abode of extinct giant monitor lizards similar to the Komodo dragon. Like Flores, Sumba and Sulawesi, Timor was also once a habitat of extinct dwarf stegodonts, relatives of elephants.

History

As the nearest island with a European settlement at the time, Timor was the destination of William Bligh and seamen loyal to him following the infamous mutiny on the Bounty in 1789. It was also where survivors of the wrecked HMS Pandora, sent to arrest the Bounty mutineers, landed in 1791 after that ship sank in the Great Barrier Reef.

The island has been politically divided in two parts for centuries: West Timor, which was known as Dutch Timor from the 1800s until 1949 when it became Indonesian Timor, a part of the nation of Indonesia which was formed from the old Netherlands East Indies; and East Timor which was known as Portuguese Timor, a Portuguese colony until 1975. It includes the enclave of Oecussi-Ambeno in West Timor. The Netherlands and Portugal did not formally resolve the matter of the boundary until 1912.

Japanese forces occupied the whole island from 1942 to 1945. They were resisted in a guerrilla campaign led initially by Australian commandos. (See Battle of Timor.)

Following the withdrawal of the Portuguese, internal unrest, and an Indonesian invasion in 1975, East Timor was annexed by Indonesia and became known as Timor Timur or 'Tim-Tim' for short. It was regarded by Indonesia as the country's 27^th province, but this was never recognised by the United Nations or Portugal. The people of East Timor resisted Indonesian forces in a prolonged guerilla campaign. (See: Indonesian occupation of East Timor). Following a referendum held in 1999, under a UN sponsored agreement between Indonesia and Portugal, in which its people rejected the offer of autonomy within Indonesia, East Timor achieved independence in 2002 and is now officially known as Timor-Leste. A group of people on the Indonesian side of Timor have been reported active since 2001 trying to establish a Great Timor State.^[4]

References

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