Map Of Flores Island Indonesia

[Casio Bauman]

Flores is located east of Sumbawa and the Komodo Islands, and west of the Solor Islands and the Alor Archipelago. To the southeast is Timor. To the south, across the Sumba Strait, is Sumba Island, and to the north, beyond the Flores Sea, is Sulawesi.

Among all islands containing Indonesian territory, Flores is the 10th most populous after Java, Sumatra, Borneo (Kalimantan), Sulawesi, New Guinea, Bali, Madura, Lombok, and Timor and also the 10th biggest island of Indonesia.

Then the island was discovered by Portuguese explorer Diogo de Teive and his son in 1452,[10] and was then given the name of Sao Tomas or Santa lria.[11] The eastern part of the island, originally called Kopondai, was called Cabo das Flores (Cape of Flowers) because of the flowering flamboyants trees found there.[12] That name remained.

Before the arrival of modern humans, Flores was occupied by Homo floresiensis, a small archaic human.[13] The ancestors of Homo floresiensis arrived on the island between 1.3 and 1 million years ago.[14]

As of 2015, partial remains of fifteen individuals have been found,[15][16][17] and the dominant consensus is that these remains do represent a distinct species due to anatomical differences from modern humans.[18] The most recent evidence shows that Homo floresiensis likely became extinct 50,000 years ago, around the time of modern human arrival to the archipelago.[19]

Portuguese traders and missionaries came to Flores in the 16th century, mainly to Larantuka and Sikka. Their influence is still discernible in Sikka's language, culture, and religion. The first Portuguese visit took place in 1511, through the expedition of Antnio de Abreu and his vice-captain Francisco Serro, en route through the Sunda islands.

The Dominican order played an important role on this island, as well as on the neighbouring islands of Timor and Solor. When the Dutch attacked the fortress of Solor in 1613, the population of the fort, led by the Dominicans, moved to the harbor town of Larantuka on the eastern coast of Flores. This population was mixed, of Portuguese and local islander descent and Larantuqueiros, Topasses, or, as the Dutch knew them, the 'Black Portuguese' (Zwarte Portugezen).

The Larantuqueiros or Topasses became the dominant sandalwood trading people of the region for the next 200 years. This group was observed by William Dampier, an English privateer visiting the Island in 1699:

These [the Topasses] have no Forts, but depend on their Alliance with the Natives: And indeed they are already so mixt, that it is hard to distinguish whether they are Portuguese or Indians. Their Language is Portuguese; and the religion they have, is Romish. They seem in Words to acknowledge the King of Portugal for their Sovereign yet they will not accept any Officers sent by him. They speak indifferently the Malayan and their native Languages, as well as Portuguese.[20]

In the western part of Flores, the Manggarai came under the control of the Sultanate of Bima, in eastern Sumbawa. The Dutch effectively established their administration over western Flores in 1907. In 1929, the Bimanese sultanate ceded any control over Manggarai.

In 1846, the Dutch and Portuguese initiated negotiations towards delimiting the territories but these negotiations led nowhere. In 1851 Lima Lopes, the new governor of Timor, Solor and Flores, agreed to sell eastern Flores and the nearby islands to the Dutch in return for a payment of 200,000 Florins to support his impoverished administration. Lima Lopes did so without the consent of Lisbon and was dismissed in disgrace, but his agreement was not rescinded and in 1854 Portugal ceded all its historical claims on Flores. After this, Flores became part of the territory of the Dutch East Indies.

In 2017 two men were killed in Flores due to land disputes between warrior clans; the Mbehel, a West Manggarai mountain tribe, and the Rangko from Sulawesi island who helped build Manggarai and were given land near Labuan Bajo by the Manggarai king.[25]

Flores is part of the East Nusa Tenggara province. The island along with smaller minor islands is split into eight regencies (local government divisions); from west to east these are Manggarai Barat (West Manggarai),[26] Manggarai (Central Manggarai), Manggarai Timur (East Manggarai), Ngada, Nagekeo, Ende, Sikka and part of Flores Timur (East Flores).[27] Flores has 35.24% of the East Nusa Tenggara provincial population as of 2023[update], and is the largest of all islands in the province, with the second-largest population (Timor has slightly more people).

Notes: (a) only the eight districts of this regency actually on Flores Island are included in these figures; the three districts comprising Solor Island and the eight districts on Adonara Island are excluded.
(b) West Manggarai Regency includes Komodo and Rinca islands off the west coast of Flores; these islands are part of a National Park and thus poorly inhabited.

The Komodo dragon is endemic to Flores and surrounding islands and has been continuously present on Flores for at least 1.4 million years.[14] Today, it is confined to a handful of small areas on Flores itself.[31]

Flores was also the habitat of several extinct dwarf forms of the proboscidean (elephant-relative) Stegodon, the most recent (Stegodon florensis insularis) disappearing approximately 50,000 years ago.[14] The island before modern human arrival was also inhabited by the giant stork Leptoptilos robustus and the vulture Trigonoceps.[33]

Flores Island is bounded by active tectonic regions, with the Sunda Trench to the south and the Flores back-arc thrust fault to the north. As a result, the island experiences many earthquakes each year and on occasion, tsunamis. The largest recorded earthquake in the region was the 1992 Flores earthquake and tsunami, a magnitude 7.8 event that caused Severe shaking on the Mercalli intensity scale. The Flores back-arc thrust is of particular interest to researchers as it is believed to accommodate the transition between the Sunda Trench in the west and the subduction of the Australian Plate in the east. The Flores Thrust is approximately 450 km long and consists of a deep rooted basal fault and many overlying imbricate thrust faults. The system is highly active, with more than 25 earthquakes of a magnitude 6 or above since 1960. In 2018, a large sequence of earthquakes (such as on the 5th of August and in July) in Lombok ruptured sections of the Flores Thrust. The dip of the main thrust fault of approximately 2-3 compared to the 3-4 dip of the subducting plate on the Sunda Trench leads some to believe that the fault could someday be the site of a subduction polarity reversal and begin subducting.[34]

Many languages are spoken on the island of Flores, all of them belonging to the Austronesian family. In the west Manggarai is spoken; Riung, often classified as a dialect of Manggarai, is spoken in the north-central part of the island. In the centre of the island in the districts of Ngada, Nagekeo, and Ende, there is what is variously called the Central Flores dialect chain or linkage. Within this area, there are slight linguistic differences in almost every village. At least six separate languages are identifiable. These are from west to east: Ngadha, Nage, Keo, Ende, Lio, and Palu'e, which is spoken on the island with the same name off the north coast of Flores. Locals would probably also add So'a and Bajawa to this list, which anthropologists have labeled dialects of Ngadha. To the east, Sika and Lamaholot can be found.

Djawanai (1983) precises that Ngadha somewhat deviates from Austronesian norms, in that words do not have clear cognates and the grammatical processes are different;[35] for example, the Austronesian family of languages makes an abundant use of prefixes or suffixes (which form new words by adding extensions either before or after root-words, such as [per-]form or child[-hood]), whereas the Ngadha and Keo languages use no prefixes or suffixes.[36]

The traditional social structure is based on complex extended family ties, where patrilinear and matrilinear lineages are at play and determine a strict social hierarchy within villages.[37][38] It is similar to that in Lembata, East Nusa Tenggara;[39] and is reflected in the spiderweb disposition of the rice fields around Cancar (16 km west of Ruteng): started as a pie centered on the point where buffaloes are sacrificed, the allotments originally shaped as pie slices were later divided transversally by the heirs.[40][41]

The native peoples of Flores are mostly Roman Catholic Christians, whereas most other Indonesians are Muslim. As a consequence, Flores may be regarded as surrounded by a religious border. The prominence of Catholicism on the island resulted from its colonisation by Portugal in the east and early 20th-century support by the Dutch in the west.[42] In other parts of Indonesia with significant Christian populations, such as the Maluku Islands and Sulawesi, the geographical divide is less rigid and Muslims and Christians sometimes live side by side. Flores thereby also has less religious violence than that which has sporadically occurred in other parts of Indonesia. There are several churches on the island. On 26 May 2019, Flores' St. Paul Catholic University of Indonesia was formally inaugurated by Indonesian Education Minister Mohamad Nasir, becoming the first Catholic University in Flores.[43] Aside from Catholicism, Islam also has a presence on the island, especially in some coastal communities.

The Nage people have plant totems but no animal totems (and therefore no taboo on killing and eating any animal).[48] On the other hand their neighbours on the west side, the Ngadha people, have 14 animals taboos for 16 plants taboos.[51]

Morinda citrifolia (mengkudu,[56] kelor in Lamalera[57]), extensively used in the archipelago as a source of red dye, does not grow well on Flores and, according to Hoopen, is scarcely used here.[52] But its use is reported in N'Dona (just east of Ende), where it is mixed with various mordants including candlenut (kemiri, very oily nut).[56] Barnes also reports its use in the villages of Ili Mandiri, East Flores[58] - and describes at length the arduous process for its preparation and application.[57] Close by, weavers from the village of Larantuka may use the tree called gemoli for red dye.[58]

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