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| Nusa Tenggara Island |
Islands, Nusa Tenggara, or Lesser Sunda Islands (now sometimes used in geographical maps of the world), is a group of islands east of Java, from the island of Bali in the west, to the island of Timor in the east. Wetar Island which is part of Maluku province geologically is also included in the Nusa Tenggara archipelago.
Administratively, the islands of Nusa Tenggara, including the territory of Indonesia, except the eastern part of Timor Island, including areas of Timor Leste.
At the beginning of Indonesia's independence, this archipelago is a province of the Lesser Sunda region its capital in Soweto, now consists of 3 provinces (in succession from west): Bali, West Nusa Tenggara and East Nusa Tenggara.
In the 1950s the Ministry of Education and Culture Moh. Yamin named the Lesser Sunda Islands became Nusa Tenggara Islands, which means "Nusa" (island, islands) located in southeastern Indonesia. Currently, the name "Nusa Tenggara" is used by the two administrative regions: Province of West Nusa Tenggara and East Nusa Tenggara.
The Lesser Sunda Islands consist of two geologically distinct archipelagos. The northern archipelago, which includes Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores and Wetar, is volcanic in origin, a number of these, like Mount Rinjani on Lombok, are still active while others, such as Kelimutu on Flores with its three multi-coloured crater lakes, are extinct. It began to be formed during the Pliocene, about 15 million years ago, as a result of the collision between the Australian and the Asian plates. The islands of the southern archipelago, including Sumba, Timor and Babar, are non-volcanic and appear to belong to the Australian plate. The geology and ecology of the northern archipelago share a similar history, characteristics and processes with the southern Maluku Islands, which continue the same island arc to the east.
There is a long history of geological study of these regions since Indonesian colonial times; however, the geological formation and progression is not fully understood, and theories of the geological evolution of the islands changed extensively during the last decades of the 20th century.
Lying at the collision of two tectonic plates, the Lesser Sunda Islands comprise some of the most geologically complex and active regions in the world. Biodiversity and distribution is affected by various tectonic activities. The islands of the northern archipelago are geologically young being from 1 to 15 million years old, and have never been attached to a larger land mass. Only Bali was part of the Ice Age continent of Sundaland, separated by the Lombok Strait from a 400-mile-long island including present-day Lombok, Sumbawa, Komodo, Flores, Solor, Adonara, and Lembata. Pantar and Alor formed a small island just to the east, while Sumba and Timor remained separate islands to the south.
The Lesser Sunda Islands differ from the large islands of Java or Sumatra in consisting of many small islands, sometimes divided by deep oceanic trenches. Movement of flora and fauna between islands is limited, leading to the evolution of a high rate of localized species, most famously the Komodo dragon. As described by Alfred Wallace in The Malay Archipelago, the Wallace Line passes between Bali and Lombok, along the deep waters of the Lombok Strait which formed a water barrier even when lower sea levels linked the now-separated islands and landmasses on either side. The islands east of the Lombok Strait are part of Wallacea, and are thus characterised by a blend of wildlife of Asian and Australasian origin in this region. Asian species predominate in the Lesser Sundas: Weber's Line, which marks the boundary between the parts of Wallacea with mainly Asian and Australasian species respectively, runs to the east of the group. These islands have the driest climate in Indonesia.
A number of the islands east of the Wallace line, from Lombok and Sumbawa east to Flores and Alor, having original vegetation of dry forest rather than the rain forest that covers much of the Indonesian region, have been designated by the World Wildlife Fund as the Lesser Sundas deciduous forests ecoregion. The higher slopes of the islands contain forests of tall Podocarpus conifers and Engelhardias with an undergrowth of lianas, epiphytes, and orchids such as Corybas, Corymborkis, and Malaxis (Adder's Mouth), while the coastal plains were originally savanna grasses such as the savanna with Borassus flabellifer palm trees on the coasts of Komodo, Rincah and Flores. Although most of the vegetation on these islands is dry forest there are patches of rainforest on these islands too, especially in lowland areas and riverbanks on Komodo, and there is a particular area of dry thorny forest on the southeast coast of Lombok. Thorn trees used to be more common in coastal areas of the islands but have largely been cleared.
These islands are home to unique species including seventeen endemic birds (of the 273 birds found on the islands). The endemic mammals are the endangered Flores Shrew (Suncus mertensi), the vulnerable Komodo Rat (Komodomys rintjanus), and Lombok Flying Fox (Pteropus lombocensis), Sunda Long-eared Bat (Nyctophilus heran) while the carnivorous Komodo dragon, which at three metres long and ninety kilograms in weight is the world's largest lizard, is found on Komodo, Rincah, Gili Motang, and the coast of northwestern Flores.
Activities popular with tourists include surfing at Kuta on Lombok, hiking on Flores and Lombok, and snorkeling or diving off the Gili Islands and Labuanbajo on Flores. Urban areas in this ecoregion (which does not include Bali, Timor or Sumba) include: on Lombok the island capital Mataram and the nearby beach resort of Senggigi; on Sumbawa the port and main town of the east coast, Bima and Sumbawa Besar in the west; and the ports of Maumere (the largest town on the island), Larantuka and Ende on Flores. Lombok and Sumbawa have surfaced roads, but the other large island Flores is too mountainous for easy road transport. The main entry point to the Lesser Sunda islands is Bali and there are smaller airports at Maumere and Mataram while transport between the islands is mainly by boat.
Bali
- Bali Island
- Nusa Penida Island
West Nusa Tenggara
- Lombok Island
- Sumbawa Island
- Island Sangeang
- Moyo Island
East Nusa Tenggara
- Komodo Island
- Flores
- Island Palue
- Island Adonara
- Solor Island
- Lomblen Island (Island Lembata)
- Pantar Island
- Alor Island
- Sumba Island
- Timor Island
- Savu Island
- Rote Island