Sumbawa

Sumbawa
Geography
Location	South East Asia
Coordinates	8°47′S, 118°5′E
Archipelago	Lesser Sunda Islands
Area	15,448 km²
Highest point	Tambora 2,850 m
Administration
Indonesia
Province	West Nusa Tenggara
Demographics
Population	1,219,590 (as of 2005)
Density	100/km²/km²

Sumbawa is an Indonesian island, located in the middle of the Lesser Sunda Islands chain, with Lombok to the west, Flores to the east, and Sumba further to the southeast. It is in the province of West Nusa Tenggara.

Sumbawa is 15,448 km² (three times the size of Lombok) with a population of around 1.5 million. It marks the boundary between the islands to the west, which were influenced by religion and culture spreading from India, and the region to the east that was not so influenced.

History

Four principalities in western Sumbawa were dependencies of the Majapahit Empire of eastern Java. Because of Sumbawa\'s natural resources it was regularly invaded by outside forces - Japanese, Dutch, Makassarese. The Dutch first arrived in 1605, but did not effectively rule Sumbawa until the early 20th century. The Balinese kingdom of Gelgel ruled western Sumbawa for a short period as well.

Demographics

Islam was introduced via the Makassarese of Sulawesi.

Sumbawa has historically had two major linguistic groups who spoke languages that were unintelligible to each other. One group centered in the western side of the island speaks Basa Samawa (Indonesian: Bahasa Sumbawa) which is similar to the Sasak language from Lombok; the second group in the east speaks Nggahi Mbojo (Bahasa Bima). The kingdoms located in Sumbawa Besar and Bima were the two focal points of Sumbawa. This division of the island into two parts remains today; Sumbawa Besar and Bima are the two largest towns on the island, and are the centers of distinct cultural groups that share the island. The official estimate of population as at 2005 was 1,219,590.

Volcanoes

Sumbawa lies within the Pacific Ring of Fire. It is a volcanic island, including Mount Tambora (8°14’41”S, 117°59’35”E) which exploded in 1815, the most destructive volcanic eruption in modern history (roughly four times larger than the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, between Java and Sumatra, in terms of volume of magma ejected). The eruption killed as many as 92,000. It also apparently destroyed a small culture of Southeast Asian affinity, known to archaeologists as the Tamboran kingdom. It launched 100 cubic kilometers of ash into the upper atmosphere, which caused 1816 to be the "year without a summer." [1]

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