Simeulue is an island of

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

, off the west coast of

Sumatra 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 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

. It covers an area of 1754 square kilometres (677 square miles), including minor offshore islands. It had a population of 80,674 at the 2010 census and 92,865 at the 2020 census. The official estimate as at mid 2021 was 93,762. Its capital is

Sinabang Sinabang is a town on the east coast of Simeulue Island, which lies off the western coast of Sumatra in Indonesia. Sinabang is the administrative seat (capital) of the Simeulue Regency, in Aceh Province of Indonesia and has a population of approxim ...

. Simeulue was once a part of

West Aceh Regency West Aceh Regency ( id, Kabupaten Aceh Barat) is a regency in the Aceh special region of Indonesia. It is located on the island of Sumatra. The regency currently covers an area of 2,927.95 square kilometres and had a population of 173,558 at the 20 ...

but was split off in 1999 and became a separate

Simeulue Regency Simeulue Regency ( id, Kabupaten Simeulue) is a regency in the Aceh special region of Indonesia. It occupies the whole island of Simeulue (Pulau Simeulue), 150 km off the west coast of Sumatra, with an area of . It had a population of 80,674 ...

Demographics

From the ethnic point of view the inhabitants of Simeulue are similar to the people of neighboring

Nias Nias ( id, Pulau Nias, Nias language: ''Tanö Niha'') (sometimes called Little Sumatra in English) is an island located off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Nias is also the name of the archipelago () of which the island is the centre ...

Island. Two languages and a number of dialects are spoken on the island: Simeulue and Sigulai, which are different from the languages spoken in the north of Sumatra. The majority of the island's population is

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

History

Simeulue was historically known to European mariners as "Hog Island"JH Moor '' Notices of the Indian Archipelago'' (1837)
p103
; retrieved 27 January 2019 and served as a landfall for ships seeking ports on the west coast of Sumatra for the pepper trade. It was also known as "Pulo Oo", or "Coconut Island". Some historians suggest the fictional islands of

Lilliput and Blefuscu Lilliput and Blefuscu are two fictional island nations that appear in the first part of the 1726 novel ''Gulliver's Travels'' by Jonathan Swift. The two islands are neighbours in the South Indian Ocean, separated by a channel wide. Both a ...

Gulliver's Travels ''Gulliver's Travels'', or ''Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships'' is a 1726 prose satire by the Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan ...

(1726) might be described as two Simeulue's remote islands in the Indian Ocean: Devayan and Sigulai.

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake

Simeulue was close to the epicenter of the 9.3 magnitude 26 December 2004 earthquake. On 28 March 2005, an 8.7 magnitude earthquake struck with its epicenter just off the south end of the island. During the earthquake, Simeulue rose at least 2 metres (6 ft) on the western coast; this left the flat top of its

coral reef A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of Colony (biology), colonies of coral polyp (zoology), polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, wh ...

s above

high tide Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide tables c ...

. On the east coast, the land was submerged, with

seawater Seawater, or salt water, is water from a sea or ocean. On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5% (35 g/L, 35 ppt, 600 mM). This means that every kilogram (roughly one liter by volume) of seawater has appro ...

flooding fields and settlements. Although Simeulue Island was only 60 kilometers from the

epicenter The epicenter, epicentre () or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates. Surface damage Before the instrumental pe ...

of the 2004 earthquake, whereas

Banda Aceh Banda Aceh ( Acehnese: ''Banda Acèh'', Jawoë: كوتا بند اچيه) is the capital and largest city in the province of Aceh, Indonesia. It is located on the island of Sumatra and has an elevation of . The city covers an area of and had ...

– the city that was hit hardest by the

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater exp ...

– was about 250 kilometers away, only six residents on Simeulue died, while the remaining 70,000 survived. This was apparently thanks to local wisdom called 'smong', which dictates that after an earthquake, if the tide suddenly recedes, people should evacuate to higher ground as soon as possible, based on the experience of a major tsunami in 1907.

Tourism

Over the past ten years Simeulue has become a growingly popular surfing destination. The southwest-facing portion of the island holds multiple world class waves and a handful of surf resorts have popped up in recent years. As surfers have continued to explore throughout

over the past 40 years since traveling surfers first arrived to

Bali Bali () is a province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller neighbouring islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan, and ...

, surfing has expanded to more and more of Indonesia's many islands. Simeulue has been one of the last of these islands with quality waves to catch on, and still remains as one of surfing's last frontiers.

References

External links