Sumba

Sumba

Geography
Location	South East Asia
Coordinates	9°40′S 120°00′E / 9.667°S 120°E / -9.667; 120
Archipelago	Lesser Sunda Islands
Area	11,153 km2 (4,306 sq mi) (73rd)
Country
Indonesia
Province	East Nusa Tenggara
Largest city	Waingapu (pop. 10,700)
Demographics
Population	611,954 (as of 2009)
Density	54.8 /km2 (142 /sq mi)
Ethnic groups	Malay and Melanesian

The Lesser Sunda Islands; Sumba is in the center

Topography of Sumba

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (April 2009)

Sumba is an island in Indonesia, and is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands. It has an area of 11,153 km², and the population was officially at 611,422 in 2005. There is a dry season from May to November and a rainy season from December to April. Historically, this island exported sandalwood and was known as Sandalwood Island ^[1].

To the northwest of Sumba is Sumbawa, to the northeast, across the Sumba Strait (Selat Sumba), is Flores, to the east, across the Savu Sea, is Timor, and to the south, across part of the Indian Ocean, is Australia. It is in the province of East Nusa Tenggara. The largest town on the island is Waingapu, with a population of about 10,700.

Before colonization, Sumba was inhabited by several small ethnolinguistic groups, some of which may have had tributary relations to the Majapahit Empire. In 1522 the first ships from Europe arrived, and by 1866 Sumba belonged to the Dutch East Indies, although the island did not come under real Dutch administration until the twentieth century.

The Sumbanese people speak a variety of closely related Austronesian languages, and have a mixture of Malay and Melanesian ancestry. Twenty-five to thirty percent of the population practises the animist Marapu religion. The remainder are Christian, a majority being Dutch Calvinist, but a substantial minority being Roman Catholic. A small number of Sunni Muslims can be found along the coastal areas.

Despite contact with western cultures, Sumba is one of the few places in the world in which megalithic burials, are used as a 'living tradition' to inter prominent individuals when they die. Burial in megaliths is a practice that was used in many parts of the world during the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, but has survived to this day in Sumba.^{[citation needed]}

The health situation on the island is unfortunately still dramatic as a high percentage of the population still suffer by malaria. Infantile death is still on very high rate. A french man is developing an interesting program in providing wells to some lost and forgotten small communities. http://web.mac.com/graffounet (broken link, please fix)

In the television show Lost, the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 tell the public that they had been stranded on a fictional island near Sumba ^[2].

Notes

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sumba

• (Indonesian) Sumba Timur Page on Official NTT Province Website
• (Indonesian) Sumba Barat Page on Official NTT Province Website
• (Indonesian) Sumba Barat Daya Page on Official NTT Province Website
• (Indonesian) Sumba Tengah Page on Official NTT Province Website
• (Indonesian) waingapu.com | Sumbanese Community Portal
• (Indonesian) Anahumba portal
• Sumba deciduous forests (World Wildlife Fund)
• Sumba Foundation
• Stichting Ontluikend Sumba
• National Geographic/Fuel TV: OnSurfari program about Sumba [1]
• Textiles of Sumba
• Detailed map