Alor ( id, Pulau Alor) is the largest

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An isla ...

in the Alor Archipelago and is one of the 92 officially listed outlying islands of Indonesia. It is located at the eastern

Lesser Sunda Islands The Lesser Sunda Islands or nowadays known as Nusa Tenggara Islands ( id, Kepulauan Nusa Tenggara, formerly ) are an archipelago in Maritime Southeast Asia, north of Australia. Together with the Greater Sunda Islands to the west they make up ...

that runs through southeastern

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 ...

, which from the west include such islands as

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 ...

Lombok Lombok is an island in West Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia. It forms part of the chain of the Lesser Sunda Islands, with the Lombok Strait separating it from Bali to the west and the Alas Strait between it and Sumbawa to the east. It is ...

Sumbawa Sumbawa is an Indonesian island, located in the middle of the Lesser Sunda Islands chain, with Lombok to the west, Flores to the east, and Sumba further to the southeast. Along with Lombok, it forms the province of West Nusa Tenggara, but th ...

Komodo Komodo may refer to: Computers * Komodo Edit, a free text editor for dynamic programming languages * Komodo IDE an integrated development environment (IDE) for dynamic programming languages * Komodo (chess), a chess engine People * Komo ...

, and

Flores Flores is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, a group of islands in the eastern half of Indonesia. Including the Komodo Islands off its west coast (but excluding the Solor Archipelago to the east of Flores), the land area is 15,530.58 km2, and t ...

. To the east of the island across the

Ombai Strait Ombai Strait ( id, Selat Ombai, pt, Estreito de Ombai, tet, Estreitu Ombai) is an international strait in Southeast Asia. It separates the Alor Archipelago from the islands of Wetar, Atauro, and Timor in the Lesser Sunda Islands. The strai ...

lie the islands of

Wetar Wetar is a tropical island which belongs to the Indonesian province of Maluku and is the largest island of the Maluku Barat Daya Islands (literally ''Southwest Islands'') of the Maluku Islands. It lies east of the Lesser Sunda Islands, which i ...

and

Atauro Atauro ( pt, Ilha de Ataúro, Tetum and Indonesian: ''Pulau Atauro'' or ''Ata'uro''), also known as Kambing Island ( id, Pulau Kambing), is an island and municipality ( pt, Município Ataúro, links=no, tet, Munisípiu Atauro, links=no or ...

, the latter belonging to

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 ...

. To the south, across the Strait of Alor, lies the western part of

Timor Timor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is divided between the sovereign states of East Timor on the eastern part and Indonesia on the western part. The Indonesian part, ...

. 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 ...

. To the west lies

Pantar Pantar ( id, Pulau Pantar) is the second largest island in the Indonesian Alor Archipelago, after Alor. To the east is the island of Alor and other small islands in the archipelago; to the west is the Alor Strait, which separates it from the S ...

and the other islands of the Alor archipelago, and further yet the rest of the

Sunda Islands The Sunda Islands ( id, Kepulauan Sunda) are a archipelago , group of islands in the Malay Archipelago.Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). wikisource:1911_Encyclopædia_Britannica/Sunda_Islands, "Sunda Islands" . ''Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Ed ...

. Alor Island, as well as the rest of its archipelago, is part of

East Nusa Tenggara East Nusa Tenggara ( id, Nusa Tenggara Timur – NTT; pt, Sonda Oriental) is the southernmost province of Indonesia. It comprises the eastern portion of the Lesser Sunda Islands, facing the Indian Ocean in the south and the Flores Sea in the nor ...

province.

Geography

Alor has an area of about 2,125 km², making it the largest island of the Alor archipelago.

Kalabahi Kalabahi is a town on Alor Island and it is the capital of Alor Regency in East Nusa Tenggara province of Indonesia. The town possesses the only puskesmas available in the district, in west Kalabahi. It covers 4 ''kelurahan'' (villages) of the Tel ...

is the only town on the island of Alor, with an estimated population of 53,807 in mid 2021. The variety of goods obtainable in Kalabahi is surprising considering its size and location. The 2010 census recorded the population of the island as 145,299 out of 190,000 in the regency. The 2020 census produced a total of 163,377, and the official estimate as at mid 2021 was 165,164. Alor is of volcanic origin and has very rugged terrain. The region near Kalabahi is the only flat area. This may be why the

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

chose the location as the capital and main harbor ( Alor-Kecil) in 1911. On 12 November 2004, an earthquake occurred, killing 34 people, and injuring 400. The shock had a

moment magnitude The moment magnitude scale (MMS; denoted explicitly with or Mw, and generally implied with use of a single M for magnitude) is a measure of an earthquake's magnitude ("size" or strength) based on its seismic moment. It was defined in a 1979 pape ...

of 7.5 and a maximum

Mercalli intensity The Modified Mercalli intensity scale (MM, MMI, or MCS), developed from Giuseppe Mercalli's Mercalli intensity scale of 1902, is a seismic intensity scale used for measuring the intensity of shaking produced by an earthquake. It measures the eff ...

of VIII (''Severe'').

Economy

The island's infrastructure is only weakly built. The inhabitants practice mainly subsistence agriculture. In the villages,

vanilla Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus '' Vanilla'', primarily obtained from pods of the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla ('' V. planifolia''). Pollination is required to make the plants produce the fruit from whic ...

tamarind Tamarind (''Tamarindus indica'') is a leguminous tree bearing edible fruit that is probably indigenous to tropical Africa. The genus ''Tamarindus'' is monotypic, meaning that it contains only this species. It belongs to the family Fabacea ...

, almonds (

Canarium ''Canarium'' is a genus of about 100 species of tropical and subtropical trees, in the family Burseraceae. They grow naturally across tropical Africa, south and southeast Asia, Indochina, Malesia, Australia and western Pacific Islands; includi ...

) and other nuts are cultivated. In the forests

sandalwood Sandalwood is a class of woods from trees in the genus '' Santalum''. The woods are heavy, yellow, and fine-grained, and, unlike many other aromatic woods, they retain their fragrance for decades. Sandalwood oil is extracted from the woods for ...

is cut down for trade. The latest geological explorations have discovered valuable resources such as

gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard or sidewalk chalk, and drywa ...

kaolin Kaolinite ( ) is a clay mineral, with the chemical composition Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4. It is an important industrial mineral. It is a layered silicate mineral, with one tetrahedral sheet of silica () linked through oxygen atoms to one octahedra ...

petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbon d ...

, tin,

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...

, and

diamonds Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, ...

. Alor's

snorkelling Snorkeling ( British and Commonwealth English spelling: snorkelling) is the practice of swimming on or through a body of water while equipped with a diving mask, a shaped breathing tube called a snorkel, and usually swimfins. In cooler waters, ...

and diving may promise an increase in tourism in the future. Alor hosts some of the most healthy and diverse corals in Indonesia and has areas of black volcanic sand for specialized scuba diving interests. COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Portret van een groep met pijl en boog gewapende krijgers op Poelau Alor TMnr 60002205

COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Portret van een groep met pijl en boog gewapende krijgers op Poelau Alor TMnr 60002205

Religion

211,872 people lived on Alor and Pantar in 2020.Badan Pusat Statistik, Jakarta, 2021. 68.46% were

Protestants Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

, 25.65%

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 ...

s and 3.04%

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

s (in a few villages). Animistic rites and traditions are still strongly practiced.

Language

The languages of Pantar (left) and Alor (right). Adang (chartreuse) occupies the Alor Peninsula. The majority of the more than fifteen indigenous languages spoken on Alor belong to the Papuan (non-Austronesian) family of Alor languages. These include Abui, Adang, Hamap, Kabola, Kafoa, Woisika, Kelon, and Kui. In addition,

Alorese Alorese (bahasa Alor) is an Austronesian language spoken on Alor and the neighboring islands of the Alor archipelago in eastern Indonesia. It is not to be confused with non-Austronesian ( Papuan) languages of the Alor–Pantar family which ar ...

is a

Malayo-Polynesian language The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken by the Austronesian peoples outside of Taiwan, in the island nations of Southeast ...

which is spoken along the coast of the western and southern Bird's Head of Alor Island and in places on surrounding islands. Many of the Papuan languages of Alor are

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and in ...

and are no longer being actively acquired by children. Some languages have fewer than 1000 speakers remaining. Significant linguistic documentation efforts have been undertaken recently by Leiden University. The language of daily communication is Alor Malay, a unique Malay variety with some similarities to

Kupang Malay In addition to its classical and literary form, Malay had various regional dialects established after the rise of the Srivijaya empire in Sumatra, Indonesia. Also, Malay spread through interethnic contact and trade across the Malay Archi ...

. Indonesian is taught in schools and used widely in media.

Transportation

Alor is served by Alor Mali Airport (ARD). The airport is small, and all incoming and outgoing flights are thus via Kupang Airport (KOE). Alor is serviced 3–4 times daily by both Lion Air (Wings) and NAM Air. Flights originating in Bali, Surabaya or Jakarta with the final destination of Alor stop in Kupang to change planes. There are no direct services from Labuan Bajo, Ende, Maumere or Makassar.

References

External links

Alor and Pantar Languages Project

Hans Hägerdal (2010) "Cannibals and pedlars: Economic opportunity and political alliance in Alor, 1600-1850", ''Indonesia and the Malay World'' 38 (111).

Van Galen's Memorandum on the Alor Islands in 1946, part 1

Van Galen's Memorandum on the Alor Islands in 1946, part 2

Alor Surga di Timur Matahari part I

Alor Surga di Timur Matahari part II
{{Authority control Lesser Sunda Islands Alor Archipelago