Christianity is the second largest religious community in the Indonesian province of West Sumatra after Islam. Christians in West Sumatra generally come from the Mentawai, Batak, Chinese and Nias ethnicities. According to a 2021 Ministry of Home Affairs data, the percentage of Christians in West Sumatra is 2.34%: to 1.50% Protestant, and 0.84% Catholic. Christianity is the demographic majority in the Mentawai Islands Regency. [1]
The following is data on Christians in West Sumatra, based on data from the Ministry of Home Affairs as of 30 June 2021. [1]
| Christianity in West Sumatra (2021) | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Municipality | Population | Protestants | % | Catholics | % | Total Christians | % |
| 1 | Mentawai Islands Regency | 90.904 | 44.068 | 48,48% | 26.365 | 29,00% | 70.433 | 77,48% |
| 2 | Padang City | 918.463 | 14.130 | 1,54% | 12.377 | 1,35% | 26.507 | 2,89% |
| 3 | Bukittinggi City | 128.944 | 2.095 | 1,62% | 1.134 | 0,88% | 3.229 | 2,50% |
| 4 | West Pasaman Regency | 436.298 | 7.395 | 1,70% | 2.769 | 0,63% | 10.164 | 2,33% |
| 5 | Dharmasraya Regency | 226.264 | 3.162 | 1,40% | 489 | 0,22% | 3.651 | 1,62% |
| 6 | Padang Panjang City | 59.998 | 392 | 0,65% | 357 | 0,60% | 749 | 1,25% |
| 7 | Payakumbuh City | 141.171 | 831 | 0,59% | 700 | 0,50% | 1.531 | 1,09% |
| 8 | Solok City | 76.272 | 512 | 0,67% | 271 | 0,36% | 783 | 1,03% |
| 9 | Agam Regency | 524.561 | 3.915 | 0,75% | 397 | 0,08% | 4.312 | 0,83% |
| 10 | South Solok Regency | 181.661 | 1.312 | 0,72% | 184 | 0,10% | 1.496 | 0,82% |
| 11 | Sawalunto City | 66.962 | 306 | 0,46% | 114 | 0,17% | 420 | 0,63% |
| 12 | Sijunjung Regency | 240.079 | 882 | 0,37% | 301 | 0,13% | 1.183 | 0,50% |
| 13 | Padang Pariaman Regency | 436.893 | 1.496 | 0,34% | 485 | 0,11% | 1.981 | 0,45% |
| 14 | Pasaman Regency | 301.444 | 1.171 | 0,39% | 162 | 0,05% | 1.333 | 0,44% |
| 15 | Pariaman City | 95.519 | 197 | 0,21% | 117 | 0,12% | 314 | 0,33% |
| 16 | Pesisir Selatan Regency | 515.549 | 811 | 0,16% | 181 | 0,04% | 992 | 0,20% |
| 17 | Lima Puluh Kota Regency | 388.585 | 511 | 0,13% | 241 | 0,06% | 752 | 0,19% |
| 18 | Tanah Datar Regency | 374.431 | 325 | 0,09% | 139 | 0,04% | 464 | 0,13% |
| 19 | Solok Regency | 392.338 | 320 | 0,08% | 38 | 0,01% | 358 | 0,09% |
| Total | 5.596.336 | 83.831 | 1,50% | 46.821 | 0,84% | 130.652 | 2,34% | |
Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 475,807.63 km2 (182,812 mi.2), including adjacent islands such as the Simeulue, Nias, Mentawai, Enggano, Riau Islands, Bangka Belitung and Krakatoa archipelago.
West Sumatra is a province of Indonesia. It is on the west coast of the island of Sumatra and includes the Mentawai Islands off that coast. West Sumatra borders the Indian Ocean to the west, as well as the provinces of North Sumatra to the north, Riau to the northeast, Jambi to the southeast, and Bengkulu to the south. The province has an area of 42,119.54 km2 (16,262.45 sq mi), with a population of 5,534,472 at the 2020 census. The official estimate at mid 2022 was 5,640,629. The province is subdivided into twelve regencies and seven cities. It has relatively more cities than other provinces outside Java, although several of them are relatively low in population compared with cities elsewhere in Indonesia. Padang is the province's capital and largest city.
The Mentawai Islands Regency are a regency of West Sumatra Province which consists of a chain of about a hundred islands and islets approximately 150 kilometres off the western coast of Sumatra in Indonesia. They cover a land area of 6,033.76 km2 and had a population of 76,173 at the 2010 Census and 87,623 at the 2020 Census; the official estimate as at mid 2022 was 89,401 - comprising 46,431 males and 42,970 females. Siberut at 3,838.25 square kilometres is the largest of the islands. The other major islands are Sipura, North Pagai, and South Pagai. The islands lie off the Sumatran coast, across the Mentawai Strait. The indigenous inhabitants of the islands are known as the Mentawai people. The Mentawai Islands have become a noted destination for surfing, with over 40 boats offering surf charters to international guests.
Siberut is the largest and northernmost of the Mentawai Islands, located 150 kilometres west of Sumatra in the Indian Ocean. It covers an area of 3,838.25 km2 including smaller offshore islands, and had a population of 35,091 at the 2010 Census and 40,220 at the 2020 Census. A part of Indonesia, the island is the most important home for the Mentawai people. The western half of the island was set aside as the Siberut National Park in 1993. Much of the island is covered with rainforest, but is subject to commercial logging.
Mentawai Strait separates the island of Sumatra from the small archipelago of the Mentawai Islands, Indonesia. Its waters belong to the Indian Ocean and both banks are part of the province of West Sumatra.
Sipora located off Sumatra in the West Sumatra Province of Indonesia, is the second-smallest and most developed of the four Mentawai Islands at only 651.55 km2. It had a population of 17,557 at the 2010 Census and 21,901 at the 2020 Census. The regency capital of the Mentawai Islands, Tuapejat, is found on Sipora. An estimated 10-15% of the original rainforest remains on this island.
Mentawai people are the native people of the Mentawai Islands about 100 miles from West Sumatra province, Indonesia. They live a semi-nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle in the coastal and rainforest environments of the islands and are also one of the oldest tribes in Indonesia. The Mentawai population is estimated to be about 64,000. The Mentawai tribe is documented to have migrated from Nias – a northern island – to the Mentawai islands, living in an isolated life for centuries until they encountered the Dutch in 1621. The ancestors of the indigenous Mentawai people are believed to have first migrated to the region somewhere between 2000 and 500 BCE. The Mentawai language belongs to the Austronesian language family. They follow their own animist belief system called Arat Sabulungan, that links the supernatural powers of ancestral spirits to the ecology of the rainforest. When the spirits are not treated well or forgotten, they might bring bad luck like illnesses and haunt those who forgot them. Mentawai also have very strong belief towards objects they think are holy. The people are characterized by their heavy spirituality, body art and their tendency to sharpen their teeth, a cultural practice tied to Mentawai beauty ideals. Mentawai tend to live in unison and peace with the nature around them because they believe that all things in nature have a form of spiritual essence.
The Mentawai language is an Austronesian language, spoken by the Mentawai people of the Mentawai Islands, West Sumatra, Indonesia.
Siberut National Park comprises 1,905 km2 (47%) of the island of Siberut in the Mentawai Islands of West Sumatra, Indonesia. The whole island including the national park is part of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves.
In Indonesia, village or subdistrict is the fourth-level subdivision and the smallest administrative division of Indonesia below a district, regency/city, and province. Similar administrative divisions outside of Indonesia include barangays in the Philippines, Muban in Thailand, civil townships and incorporated municipalities in the United States and Canada, communes in France and Vietnam, dehestan in Iran, hromada in Ukraine, Gemeinden in Germany, comuni in Italy, or municipios in Spain. The UK equivalent are civil parishes and communities in Wales. There are a number of names and types for villages in Indonesia, with desa being the most frequently used for regencies and kelurahan for cities. According to the 2019 report by the Ministry of Home Affairs, there are 8,488 urban villages and 74,953 rural villages in Indonesia. North Aceh Regency contained the highest number of rural villages (852) amongst all of the regencies of Indonesia, followed by Pidie Regency with 730 rural villages and Bireuen Regency with 609 rural villages. Prabumulih, with only 12 rural villages, contained the fewest. Counted together, the sixteen regencies of Indonesia containing the most rural villages—namely, North Aceh (852), Pidie (730), Bireuen (609), Aceh Besar (604), Tolikara (541), East Aceh (513), Yahukimo (510), Purworejo (469), Lamongan (462), South Nias (459), Kebumen (449), Garut (421), Bojonegoro (419), Bogor (416), Cirebon (412), and Pati (401)—contain one-third of all the rural villages in Indonesia. Five of these are located in Aceh, two in Highland Papua, three in Central Java, two in East Java, three in West Java, and one in North Sumatra. An average number of rural villages in the regencies and 15 cities of Indonesia is 172 villages. A village is the lowest administrative division in Indonesia, and it is the lowest of the four levels. A village is usually divided into a number of hamlets, and there are 252,315 hamlets in Indonesia.
Several different religions are practised in Indonesia. Indonesia is officially a presidential republic and a unitary state without an established state religion. Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population and the first principle of Indonesia's philosophical foundation, Pancasila, requires its citizens to state the belief in "the one and almighty God". Although, as explained by the Constitutional Court, this first sila of Pancasila is an explicit recognition of divine substances and meant as a principle on how to live together in a religiously diverse society. However, blasphemy is a punishable offence and the Indonesian government has a discriminatory attitude towards its numerous tribal religions, atheist and agnostic citizens. In addition, the Aceh province officially enforces Sharia law and is notorious for its discriminatory practices towards religious and sexual minorities. There are also pro-Sharia and fundamentalist movements in several parts of the country with overwhelming Muslim majorities.
The Pagai Island macaque, also known as the Pagai macaque or Bokkoi, is an Old World monkey endemic to the Mentawai Islands off the west coast of Sumatra. It is listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List due to its ever-shrinking habitat. Macaca pagensis formerly included the overall darker Siberut macaque as a subspecies, but this arrangement is polyphyletic, leading to the two being classified as separate species. Both were formerly considered subspecies of the southern pig-tailed macaque.
Christianity is Indonesia's second-largest religion, after Islam. Indonesia also has the second-largest Christian population in Southeast Asia after the Philippines, the largest Protestant population in Southeast Asia, and the third-largest Christian population in Asia after the Philippines and China, followed by India. Indonesia also has the second-largest Christian population in the Muslim world, after Nigeria, followed by Egypt. Indonesia's 29,2 million Christians constituted 10,48% of the country's population in 2022, with 7,42% Protestant (20.7 million) and 3,06% Catholic (8.5 million). Some provinces in Indonesia are majority Christian. In Indonesia, the word Kristen refers to Protestantism, while Catholicism is referred to as Katolik. In recent times, the rate of growth and spread of Christianity has increased, especially among the Chinese minority.
Protestantism is one of the six approved religions in Indonesia, the others being Islam, Roman Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. It constitutes the bulk of Christianity in Indonesia, which is the second largest religion in the country after Islam.
The Mentawai squirrel is a species of rodent in the family Sciuridae. It is one of 20 or so species endemic to the Mentawai Islands off the west coast of Sumatra. There are three subspecies: C. m. melanogaster, C. m. mentawi, and C. m. atratus. This small isolated population is listed as "Vulnerable" by the IUCN due to habitat loss.
Christianity in Asia has its roots in the very inception of Christianity, which originated from the life and teachings of Jesus in 1st-century Roman Judea. Christianity then spread through the missionary work of his apostles, first in the Levant and taking roots in the major cities such as Jerusalem and Antioch. According to tradition, further eastward expansion occurred via the preaching of Thomas the Apostle, who established Christianity in the Parthian Empire (Iran) and India. The very First Ecumenical Council was held in the city of Nicaea in Asia Minor (325). The first nations to adopt Christianity as a state religion were Armenia in 301 and Georgia in 327. By the 4th century, Christianity became the dominant religion in all Asian provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire.
The 2010 Mentawai earthquake occurred with a moment magnitude of 7.8 on 25 October off the western coast of Sumatra at 21:42 local time. The earthquake occurred on the same fault that produced the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. It was widely felt across the provinces of Bengkulu and West Sumatra and resulted in a substantial localized tsunami that struck the Mentawai Islands.
The Sakuddei or Sabiroet people are an ethnic group, one of at least eleven, on the island of Siberut, Indonesia. Siberut is the northernmost of the Mentawai Islands which are located 130 km (81 mi) to the west off the coast of Sumatra. The Sakuddei live in south-central Siberut in an egalitarian society, cut off from the outside world. They speak a dialect of the Malayo-Polynesian Mentawai language.
Adityawarman Museum is a State Museum located in Padang, Western Sumatra. As a State Museum, Adityawarman Museum is officially known as the State Museum of West Sumatra. The museum displays ethnographic collections of items related to the culture of the Province of West Sumatra, particularly the culture of Minangkabau and Mentawai.