Lautém Municipality
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Lautém ( pt, Município Lautém, ) is one of the
municipalities A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the ...
(formerly districts) of
East Timor East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-w ...
, at the eastern end of the country. It has a population of 64,135 (census 2010) and an area of 1,813 km². Its capital is
Lospalos Lospalos — sometimes erroneously written as ''Los Palos'', assuming a nonexistent Spanish etymology — is a city in East Timor, to the east of Dili, the national capital. Lospalos has a population of 17,186 (2006) and is the capital of L ...
, which lies 248 km east of the national capital,
Dili Dili ( Portuguese/ Tetum: ''Díli'') is the capital, largest city of East Timor and the second largest city in Timor islands after Kupang (Indonesia). It lies on the northern coast of the island of Timor, in a small area of flat land hemmed i ...
.


Etymology

The word ''Lautém'' is a Portuguese approximation of the local Fataluku language word ''Lauteinu''. That word, in turn, is a
portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of words The mythical ancestors of today's municipal population were known as ''Lauteinu'' or ''Lauteira''.


Geography

To the west the municipality borders the municipalities of
Baucau Baucau ( pt, Baucau, tet, Baukau) is the second-largest city in East Timor, after Dili, the capital, which lies to its west. Baucau has about 16,000 inhabitants, and is the capital of Baucau municipality, located in the eastern part of th ...
and
Viqueque Viqueque (, ) is a city in the south-east of East Timor, 183 km from Dili, the national capital. Viqueque is the capital of Viqueque Municipality and Viqueque Administrative Post Viqueque, officially Viqueque Administrative Post ( ...
. To the north lies the
Banda Sea The Banda Sea ( id, Laut Banda, pt, Mar de Banda, tet, Tasi Banda) is one of four seas that surround the Maluku Islands of Indonesia, connected to the Pacific Ocean, but surrounded by hundreds of islands, including Timor, as well as the Halma ...
, and to the south the
Timor Sea The Timor Sea ( id, Laut Timor, pt, Mar de Timor, tet, Tasi Mane or ) is a relatively shallow sea bounded to the north by the island of Timor, to the east by the Arafura Sea, and to the south by Australia. The sea contains a number of reefs ...
. The municipality also includes the easternmost point of the island, Cape Cutcha in the administrative post of Tutuala, and the small island Jaco. The borders of the municipality of Lautém are identical to those of the council of the same name in
Portuguese Timor Portuguese Timor ( pt, Timor Português) was a colonial possession of Portugal that existed between 1702 and 1975. During most of this period, Portugal shared the island of Timor with the Dutch East Indies. The first Europeans to arrive in th ...
. At that time, many of the localities had Portuguese names, such as ''Vila Nova de Malaca'' (today Lautém), ''Nova Nazaré'' (
Com Com or COM may refer to: Computing * COM (hardware interface), a serial port interface on IBM PC-compatible computers * COM file, or .com file, short for "command", a file extension for an executable file in MS-DOS * .com, an Internet top-level d ...
), ''Nova Sagres'' ( Tutuala) and ''Nova Âncora'' ( Laivai). Lautém has beautiful sand beaches and a wild, mountainous, and raw rugged unspoilt landscape. Many of the endemic birds of East Timor live here. Near the city of Lautém there are cave drawings. Numerous stone sarcophagi and animistic shrines are found throughout the district. Lautém municipality is known for its birding ( birds of East Timor). Its municipal flag has the head of a yellow-crested cockatoo.


Administrative posts

The municipality's administrative posts (formerly sub-districts) are: * Iliomar * Lautém *
Lospalos Lospalos — sometimes erroneously written as ''Los Palos'', assuming a nonexistent Spanish etymology — is a city in East Timor, to the east of Dili, the national capital. Lospalos has a population of 17,186 (2006) and is the capital of L ...
* Luro * Tutuala


Demographics

In addition to the official languages of Portuguese and
Tetum , nativename=Tetun , states= Indonesia East Timor , speakers=, mostly in Indonesia , date=2010–2011 , ref=e18 , speakers2=50,000 L2-speakers in Indonesia and East Timor , familycolor=Austronesian , fam2=Malayo-Polynesian , fam3= Central–East ...
, in the municipality there are 30,000 speakers of the
Papuan language The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian and non- Australian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands, by around 4 million people. It is a strictly ge ...
Fataluku, mainly in the east of the district, many of whom do not speak a second language.


References


Notes


Bibliography

* * * *


External links

* – official site (in Tetum with some content in English) * – information page on Ministry of State Administration site
Fataluku language website

Ethnologue page for Fataluku
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lautem District Municipalities of East Timor