The Maluku Islands or the Moluccas are an archipelago in the eastern part of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located east of Sulawesi, west of New Guinea, and north and east of Timor. Lying within Wallacea, the Moluccas have been considered a geographical and cultural intersection of Asia and Oceania.
Ambon Island is part of the Maluku Islands of Indonesia. The island has an area of 743.37 km2 (287.02 sq mi) and is mountainous, well watered, and fertile. Ambon Island consists of two territories: the city of Ambon to the south and various districts (kecamatan) of the Central Maluku Regency to the north. The main city and seaport is Ambon, which is also the capital of Maluku province, while those districts of Maluku Tengah Regency situated on Ambon Island had a 2020 Census population of 128,069. By mid 2023 those populations were estimated to have become 354,052 and 128,754 respectively, resulting in an all-island population of 482,806.
Ambon is the capital and largest city of the Indonesian province of Maluku. This city is also known as Ambon Manise, which means "beautiful" or "pretty" Ambon in the Ambonese language. It covers a land area of 359.45 km2, and had a population of 331,254 at the 2010 Census and 347,288 at the 2020 Census; the official estimate as at mid 2023 was 354,052. The city is divided into five administrative districts – namely Nusaniwe, Sirimau, Teluk Ambon, Baguala and Leitimur Selatan. Known as Indonesia's music city, Ambon became the first city in Southeast Asia to be recognised as the UNESCO City of Music in 2019.
Maluku is a province of Indonesia. It comprises the central and southern regions of the Maluku Islands. The largest city and capital of Maluku province is Ambon on the small Ambon Island. It is directly adjacent to North Maluku, Southwest Papua, and West Papua in the north, Central Sulawesi, and Southeast Sulawesi in the west, Banda Sea, Australia, East Timor and East Nusa Tenggara in the south and Arafura Sea, Central Papua and South Papua in the east. The land area is 57803.81 km2, and the total population of this province at the 2010 census was 1,533,506 people, rising to 1,848,923 at the 2020 census, the official estimate as at mid 2023 was 1,908,753. Maluku is located in Eastern Indonesia.
South Maluku, also South Moluccas, officially the Republic of South Maluku, is an unrecognised secessionist republic that originally claimed the islands of Ambon, Buru, and Seram, which currently make up the Indonesian province of Maluku.
Francisco Serrão was a Portuguese explorer and a possible cousin of Ferdinand Magellan. His 1512 voyage was the first known European sailing east past Malacca through modern Indonesia and the East Indies. He became a confidant of Sultan Bayan Sirrullah, the ruler of Ternate, becoming his personal advisor. He remained in Ternate where he died around the same time Magellan died.
The Ambonese, misunderstood as well as Moluccans, are an ethnic group of mixed Austronesian and Melanesian origin. They are majority Christians followed by Muslims. The Ambonese are from Ambon Island in Maluku, an island group east of Sulawesi and north of Timor in Indonesia. They also live on the southwest of Seram Island; which is part of the Moluccas, Java, New Guinea; on the West Papua side and other regions of Indonesia. Additionally, there are about 35,000 Ambonese people living in the Netherlands. By the end of the 20th century, there were 258,331 Ambonese people living in Ambon, Maluku.
Tidore is a language of North Maluku, Indonesia, spoken by the Tidore people. The language is centered on the island of Tidore, but it is also spoken in some areas of the neighbouring Halmahera. A North Halmahera language, it is unlike most languages in Indonesia which belong to the Austronesian language family. Tidore and other North Halmahera languages are perhaps related to languages of the Bird's Head Peninsula, West Papua.
Thomas Matulessy, also known as Kapitan Pattimura or simply Pattimura, was a famous Ambonese soldier who became a symbol of both the Maluku and Indonesian struggle for independence, praised by President Sukarno and declared a national hero by President Suharto. He has several namesakes in both the Netherlands and in the Indonesian archipelago.
Lawangan is an Austronesian language of the East Barito group. It is spoken by about 100,000 Lawangan people living in the central Kalimantan, Indonesia. Lawangan has a high degree of dialectal diversity.
Kei is an Austronesian language spoken in a small region of the Moluccas, a province of Indonesia.
Banda is an Austronesian language of the Central Maluku subgroup. Along with Kei, it is one of the two languages of the Kei Islands in the Indonesian province of Maluku.
Major TNI Marthen Indey (1912–1986) was a colonial police officer in New Guinea, Dutch East Indies who later became nationalist fighter in the Indonesian National Revolution and a supporter of Papua becoming part of Indonesia. He was declared a National Hero of Indonesia in 1993 along with two other people of Papuan descent, Frans Kaisiepo and Silas Papare.
Bacan Malay or Bacan is a Malayic language spoken on the island of Bacan in North Maluku province, Indonesia, by the minor Bacan ethnic group. It is an anomalous presence in the region, being surrounded by genetically distant Austronesian languages and languages of the unrelated North Halmahera family. Bacan is geographically removed from the Malay heartlands in the western archipelago.
Maluku, a group of islands within the Indonesian archipelago, has a variety of culture and customs expressed in music, tools, languages, dance, and art.
Zainal Abidin ; born Tidore Wonge or Gapi Buta ) was the 18th or 19th ruler of the Ternate Sultanate of Maluku, located in modern-day Indonesia. His life is only described in sources dating from the 16th century or later. According to these sources he was the first ruler of Ternate to use the title Sultan rather than Kolano, or king, and enacted a number of changes in the government, based on Islamic Law, technically transforming Ternate into an Islamic kingdom.
James T. Collins is an American linguist who works on comparative linguistics, lexicography, and sociolinguistics. Collins specializes primarily in Austronesian languages.
The 1674 Ambon earthquake occurred on February 17 between 19:30 and 20:00 local time in the Maluku Islands. The resulting tsunami reached heights of up to 100 metres (330 ft) on Ambon Island killing over 2,000 individuals. It was the first detailed documentation of a tsunami in Indonesia and the largest ever recorded in the country. The exact fault which produced the earthquake has never been determined, but geologists postulate either a local fault, or a larger thrust fault offshore. The extreme tsunami was likely the result of a submarine landslide.
The Wai Apu people are one of the native peoples of Buru island in Maluku, Indonesia, typically inhabiting the north-east of the island in what are now the Namlea and Waplau districts. Research from the Indonesian Ministry of Social Affairs in 1985 numbers the Wai Apu population at approximately 44,048.
The Tangkin is a traditional parang (knife) of the Iban people from Sarawak, Malaysia and West Kalimantan, Indonesia.
