Watubela is an

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the o ...

in the

Maluku Islands The Maluku Islands ( ; , ) or the Moluccas ( ; ) are an archipelago in the eastern part of Indonesia. Tectonics, Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located in West ...

, east of Ceram and north of

Kai Islands The Kai Islands (also Kei Islands) of Indonesia are a group of islands in the southeastern part of the Maluku Islands, located in the province of Maluku (province), Maluku. The Moluccas have been known as the Spice Islands due to regionally sp ...

, southeast of the

Gorong archipelago The Gorom (formerly called Gorong) archipelago is a group of islands situated between the Watubela archipelago and Ceram in the Maluku Islands. History The ''Nagarakretagama'', an Old Javanese eulogy to king Hayam Wuruk of Majapahit written in ...

, and southwest of the

Bomberai Peninsula Bomberai Peninsula () is located in the Western New Guinea region. It is south of the Bird's Head Peninsula, and Bintuni Bay separates the two peninsulas. To the west lies the Sebakor Bay and to the south Kamrau Bay. On the southeast Arguni ...

of Papua,

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

. It includes the islands of Watubela itself, Kesui (also called ''Kasiui'') and

Teor Teor was a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Udine in the Italy, Italian region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, located about northwest of Trieste and about southwest of Udine. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 2,020 and an area ...

(also called ''Tio'or''). The total land area is 60.99 km², of which Watubela and Kesui together cover 37.58 km² and Teor covers 23.41 km². The islands now form two separate districts (''kecamatan'') within the

East Seram Regency East Seram Regency () is a regency of Maluku (province), in Indonesia. It is mainly located on the island of Seram, but also includes smaller islands to the southeast comprising the Gorom (or "Gorong") and Watubela archipelagoes. The regency co ...

of Maluku. Kesui Watubela District (also called Wakate District) includes Watubela and Kesui Islands, with a number of smaller islands; it had 9,623 inhabitants as at mid 2022. Teor District consists of the island of the same name, together with Bama Island to its south, linked by an attenuated natural causeway; it had 3,303 inhabitants as at mid 2022. The English naturalist

Alfred Russel Wallace Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was an English naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He independently conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection; his 1858 pap ...

described the islands, which he called the Matabello Islands, in chapter 25 of his 1869 book ''

The Malay Archipelago ''The Malay Archipelago'' is a book by the English naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace which chronicles his scientific exploration, during the eight-year period 1854 to 1862, of the southern portion of the Malay Archipelago including Malaysia, S ...

''.

References

External links

Languages of Indonesia (Maluku)
Maluku Islands {{Maluku-geo-stub