Kayoa

Native name: Pulau Urimatiti
Geography
Coordinates	00°4′N127°25′E / 0.067°N 127.417°E /0.067; 127.417
Archipelago	Maluku Islands
Total islands	66
Area	179.97 km2 (69.49 sq mi)
Highest elevation	422 m (1385 ft)
Highest point	Mount Tigalalu
Administration
Indonesia
Province	North Maluku
Demographics
Population	22,864 (mid 2022)
Pop. density	127.0/km2 (328.9/sq mi)

Kayoa (alsoKaioa), or in the native languagePulau Urimatiti, is a group of 66 islands, part of theMaluku Islands. It is located inSouth Halmahera Regency, part ofNorth Maluku Province ofIndonesia.

The Kayoa Islands are near the southern end of a chain ofvolcanic islands off the western coast of Halmaherato (Halmahera region), to the south ofMakian and to the north ofBacan.^[1] The 66 islands cover a land area of 179.97 km². The main island is about 10 miles (16 km) long, about 9 miles (14.5 km) south of Makian with a line of hills along most of its length.^[2] The group forms four districts within South Halmahera Regency, and it had a total population of 20,176 at the 2010 Census^[3] and 23,111 at the 2020 Census.^[4] The official estimate for mid 2022 was 22,864.^[5]

The islands were for centuries the only place in the world wherecloves were produced. Kayoa lies on theequator and is subject to regular heavy rain in the twomonsoon seasons, which are December to March and June to July.^[6]

ThestratovolcanoMount Tigalalu lies at the western end of Kayoa, partly flanked by coral limestones.^[7] However, Kayoa Island differs from its neighbours in being composed mainly ofsedimentary rather thanvolcanic rock. Its western side consists of terraces of raised coral limestone with pumice and beach sand.^[6]

Kayoa Barat District - comprising Mauri Island (Pulau Mauri) and 4 smaller islands - is actually closer to theBacan Islands than to Kayoa Island. The rest of the archipelago comprises a number of groups and individual islands - the largest beingPulau Kayoa andPulau Waidoba in the east, andPulau Taneti in the southwest, with a number of smaller islands northwards from Taneti Island - including the Gora Ici Islands, Gunange, Laigoma, Siko and Gafi.

The four districts are sub-divided into thirty administrative villages (desa) as tabulated below:

There are two native languages on Kayoa island, as well asIndonesian. The language namedWest Makian, spoken by about 12,000 people in Kayoa and its outlying islands, is one of the North Halmahera languages, which appear to fall within theWest Papuan family.^[8] The language namedTaba or East Makian is one of the Austronesian languages.^[9]

Archaeological evidence shows a foraging culture on Kayoa before around 3,500 years ago, changing at that time to an agricultural way of life with animals including pigs and dogs, red-slipped pottery, shell bracelets and beads, and polished stone tools such asadzes. This change shows the arrival on Kayoa of a new culture by 1500 BC.^[10][11] From 2,000 years ago the islands started to trade spices to India and beyond.^[10] Chinese copper money is found in jar burials of between 2,000 and 1,000 years ago in the Uattamdi cave shelter on Kayoa, implying that trade in cloves began early on the island. With the jars are glass beads, pieces of bronze and iron, and large shells from the coral reef. One of the burial vessels has rectangular and triangular patterns like those found at Leang Buidane but not on nearby islands.^[6]

NaturalistAlfred Russel Wallace visited Kayoa, as described in his 1869 bookThe Malay Archipelago.^[12] He records that

The next day (October 16th [1858]) I went beyond the swamp, and found a place where a new clearing was being made in the virgin forest... I have never in my life seenbeetles so abundant as they were on this spot. Some dozen species of good-sized goldenBuprestidae, green rose-chafers (Lomaptera), and long-horned weevils (Anthribidae) were so abundant that they rose up in swarms as I walked along, filling the air with a loud buzzing hum. Along with these, several fineLongicorns were almost equally common, forming such an assemblage as for once to realize that idea oftropical luxuriance which one obtains by looking over the drawers of a well-filled cabinet... It was a glorious spot, and one which will always live in my memory as exhibiting the insect-life of the tropics in unexampled luxuriance.

— Wallace^[13]

• Wallace, Alfred Russel (1869).The Malay Archipelago: The land of the orang-utan, and the bird of paradise. A narrative of travel, with sketches of man and nature (1 ed.). Macmillan.

• Islands of the Maluku Islands
• Landforms of North Maluku

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