This article is about the island in Southeast Asia. For the sovereign state, seeTimor-Leste. For the part of Indonesia, seeWest Timor. For other uses, seeTimor (disambiguation).
Portrait of a Timorese warrior in the area of Kupang in 1875, from the report of the expedition of the German shipSMSGazelleBoats along the Timor coast
The earliest historical record about Timor island is the 13th-century ChineseZhu Fan Zhi, where it is calledTi-wu and is noted for its sandalwood. Later on, in the 14th-century JavaneseNagarakretagama, Canto 14,Timur is identified as an island withinMajapahit's realm. Timor was incorporated into ancientJavanese, Chinese and Indian trading networks of the 14th century as an exporter of aromaticsandalwood,slaves,honey andwax, and was settled by both thePortuguese, in the end of the 16th century, and theDutch, based in Kupang, in the mid-17th century.
As the nearest island with a European settlement at the time, Timor was the destination ofWilliam Bligh and seamen loyal to him following the infamousmutiny on theBounty in 1789. It was also where survivors of the wreckedHMS Pandora, sent to arrest theBounty mutineers, landed in 1791 after that ship sank in theGreat Barrier Reef.
The island has been politically divided in two parts for centuries. The Dutch and Portuguese fought for control of the island until it was divided bytreaty in 1859, but they still did not formally resolve the matter of the boundary until 1912.West Timor, was known asDutch Timor until 1949 when it becameIndonesian Timor, a part of the nation ofIndonesia which was formed from the oldNetherlands East Indies; whileEast Timor was known asPortuguese Timor, a Portuguese colony until 1975. It includes theexclave ofOecussi-Ambeno in West Timor.
Although Portugal was neutral duringWorld War II, in December 1941, Portuguese Timor was occupied byAustralian and Dutch forces, which were expecting aJapanese invasion. This Australian military intervention dragged Portuguese Timor into the Pacific War but it also slowed the Japanese expansion. When the Japanese did occupy Timor, in February 1942, a 400-strong Dutch-Australian force and large numbers of Timorese volunteers engaged them ina one-year guerrilla campaign. After the allied evacuation in February 1943 the East Timorese continued fighting the Japanese, with comparatively littlecollaboration with the enemy taking place. This assistance cost the civilian population dearly: Japanese forces burned many villages and seized food supplies. The Japanese occupation resulted in the deaths of 40,000–70,000 Timorese.
Following themilitary coup in Portugal in 1974 the Portuguese began to withdraw from Timor. Thesubsequent internal unrest and fear of the communistFretilin party led to aninvasion by Indonesia, who opposed the concept of an independent East Timor. In 1975, East Timor was annexed by Indonesia and became known asTimor Timur or 'Tim-Tim' for short. It was regarded by Indonesia as the country's 27th province, but this was never recognised by theUnited Nations (UN) orPortugal.
The people of East Timor, throughFalintil the military wing of Fretilin, resisted 35,000 Indonesian troops in a prolonged guerrilla campaign, but the whole island remained under Indonesian control untila referendum held in 1999 under a UN-sponsored agreement between Indonesia and Portugal in which its people rejected the offer of autonomy within Indonesia. The UN then temporarily governed East Timor until it became independent as Timor-Leste in 2002 under the presidency of Falintil leaderXanana Gusmão. Political strife continued, as the new nation coped with poverty. Nevertheless, the UN presence was much reduced.
A group of people on the Indonesian side of Timor have been reported active since 2001 trying to establish aGreat Timor state.[1] However, there is no real evidence that the people of West Timor, most of whom are ethnicallyAtoni, the traditional enemy of the East Timorese, have any interest in such a union.[citation needed] Furthermore, the current government of Timor-Leste recognizes the existing boundary.[citation needed]
Anthropologists identify eleven distinctethno-linguistic groups in Timor. The largest are theAtoni of western Timor and theTetum of central and eastern Timor.[2] Most indigenous Timorese languages belong to theTimor–Babar branch of theAustronesian languages spoken throughout the Indonesian archipelago. Although lexical evidence is lacking,[3] thenon-Austronesian languages of Timor are thought to be related to languages spoken onHalmahera and inWestern New Guinea.[2] Some are so mixed that it is difficult to tell which family they descend from.
The official languages of Timor-Leste areTetum andPortuguese, while in West Timor it isIndonesian, although Uab Meto (also known as Dawan language) is the local Atoni language spoken throughoutKupang,South Central Timur andNorth Central Timur Regencies. Indonesian, a standardized dialect of Malay, is also widely spoken and understood in Timor-Leste.[4]
Christianity is the dominant religion throughout the island of Timor, at about 90% of the population. However, it is unequally distributed as West Timor is 58% Protestant and 37% Catholic, and Timor-Leste is 98% Catholic and 1% Protestant.Islam andanimism make up most of the remainder at about 5% each across the island.
Timor is the principal island of theOuter Banda Arc, which is being uplifted by arc-continent collision with theAustralian continent. Timor consists mostly of rocks from the Australian continental margin that are accreted to the Banda Arc. It occupies a forearc position in front of the active volcanic arc that forms the islands in the Flores region to the north. 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 theIndo-Australian Plate as it meets theEurasian Plate and pushes intoSoutheast Asia.[5] The climate includes a long dry season (April-November) with hot winds blowing over from Australia. Rivers on the island include theNorth andSouth Laclo Rivers in Timor-Leste. The mountains, which reach up to nearly 3000m in elevation, are one of the most mature parts of the Banda Range, which stretches from Sumba to Seram. Mutis is the highest mountain in West Timor and Ramelau is the highest mountain in Timor Leste.
The largest towns on the island are the provincial capital ofKupang in West Timor, Indonesia and the Portuguese colonial towns ofDili the capital, andBaucau in Timor-Leste. Poor roads make transport to inland areas difficult, especially in Timor-Leste.[6] Sources of revenue include gas and oil in the Timor Sea, coffee growing and tourism.
Timor is an aerially exposed portion of theBanda Forearc formed by collision ofEurasian oceaniccrust and continental crust of theAustralian plate. This is a unique convergent margin where a thick continental margin is forced under thinner oceanic crust. The result is a largeaccretionary wedge of imbricatedthrust sheets composed ofCretaceous andTertiary distal material of the Australian continental margin thrust on top of Australiancontinental shelf deposits. Timor is well known for its structural complexity. Debate continues about the nature of deformation of continental crust. Some researchers advocate shallow thin-skinned deformation, while others favor shallow thin-skinned with some basement deformation.[7]
Timor also has potential for significantpetroleum development. Onshore and offshore exploration efforts have been attempted with varying success. Timor host dozens of naturaloil and gas seeps with most exploration concentrated on the north end of the Island where oil seeps are prevalent. Carbon rich shales from the island have been found with TOC up to 23%. Such shales buried deep in the subsurface could act as high-qualitysource rocks.Jurassic marine shoreface andturbidite sands of the Plover and Militia Formations are provenreservoirs in the North Australian Shelf. Over pressured Upper Jurassic silt and mudstones shales may also provide adequate seals for hydrocarbons. Research focusing on the structure of deformed basement rocks provides insight into possible onshore and offshore structural and stratigraphic traps for future petroleum development.[7][8]
West Timor is part of theEast Nusa Tenggara province. It was formerly split into the City of Kupang (akabupaten or regency-level administrative area) and fourregencies (kabupaten); from west to east these are:Kupang,Timor Tengah Selatan (South Central Timor),Timor Tengah Utara (North Central Timor) andBelu. However, a fifth regency –Malaka – was in 2012 formed from the southern half of Belu Regency. Note that the administrative area has shrunk asRote Ndao Regency (Rote and Ndoa islands to the southwest) andSabu Raijua Regency (the Savu Islands further west) were split off in 2002 and 2009 respectively from Kupang Regency. The island accounts for 35.5% of the provincial population.
Timor-Leste is divided into thirteen municipalities, which in turn are subdivided into 65 administrative posts, 442sucos (villages), and 2,225aldeias (hamlets).[16][17]
Timor and its offshore islands such asAtauro, a former place of exile increasingly known for its beaches and coral[citation needed], as well asJaco along with Wetar and the otherBarat Daya Islands to the northeast constitute theTimor and Wetar deciduous forestsecoregion. The natural vegetation wastropical dry broadleaf forests with an undergrowth of shrubs and grasses supporting a rich wildlife[citation needed]. However much of the original forest has been cleared for farming,[citation needed] especially on the coasts of Timor and on the smaller islands like Atauro. Apart from one large block in the centre of Timor only patches remain.[citation needed] This ecoregion is part of theWallacea area with a mixture of plants and animals ofAsian andAustralasian origin; it lies in the western part of Wallacea, in which Asian species predominate.
Saltwater crocodiles are found in the wetlands whereasreticulated pythons can be found in forests and grasslands of Timor. However, the population sizes and status are unknown.
^Gary Holton; Laura C. Robinson (2014). "The linguistic position of the Timor-Alor-Pantar languages". In Klamer, Marian (ed.).The Alor-Pantar languages.
^Uri Tadmor (2008). "Grammatical borrowing in Indonesian". In Yaron Matras; Jeanette Sakel (eds.). Grammatical Borrowing in Cross-Linguistic Perspective. Walter de Gruyter. p. 301.ISBN978-3-11-019919-2.
^Audley-Charles, M.G. (1987) "Dispersal of Gondwanaland: relevance to evolution of the Angiosperms"In: Whitmore, T.C. (ed.) (1987)Biogeographical Evolution of the Malay Archipelago Oxford Monographs on Biogeography 4, Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp. 5–25,ISBN0-19-854185-6 Harris, R.A. "The Nature of the Banda Arc-Continent Collision in the Timor Region"In In: D. Brown and P.D. Ryan, Arc-Continent Collision, Frontiers in Earth Sciences, DOI 10.1007/978-3-540-88558-0_7, Springer-VerlagBerlin Heidelberg, pp. 163-211.
^Kaiser H, Ceballos J, Freed P, Heacox S, Lester B, Richards S, Trainor C, Sanchez C, O'Shea M (2011) The herpetofauna of Timor-Leste: a first report. ZooKeys 109: 19-86.https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.109.1439
^O'Shea, Marc and Sanchez, Caitlin. 2015. Herpetological Diversity of Timor-Leste: Updates and a Review of Species Distributions. Asian Herpetological Research, 6(2): 73-131.https://doi.org/10.16373/j.cnki.ahr.140066
^J. H. F. Umbgrove, Structural History of the East Indies
