Waigeo is an

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 Southwest Papua province of eastern

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 ...

. The island is also known as Amberi, or Waigiu. It is the largest of the four main islands in the Raja Ampat Islands archipelago, between

Halmahera Halmahera, formerly known as Jilolo, Gilolo, or Jailolo, is the largest island in the Maluku Islands. It is part of the North Maluku province of Indonesia, and Sofifi, the capital of the province, is located on the west coast of the island. Ha ...

and about to the north-west coast of

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torres ...

. The Dampier Strait (a.k.a. Augusta's Strait) separates it from Batanta, and the

Bougainville Strait Bougainville Strait separates Choiseul Island, part of the Solomon Islands from Bougainville Island, the next to the northward and part of Papua New Guinea. The first European to pass through the strait was Louis Antoine de Bougainville in 1768, ...

from the Kawe Islands to its north-west. The "inner sea" that nearly cleaves the island in two is Mayalibit Bay, also known as the Majoli Gulf. The area of the island is ; the highest elevations are Buffalo Horn (Gunung Nok) and Serodjil. From west to east the island measures approximately , north–south about . The town of Waisai in the south of the island is the capital of the Raja Ampat Regency.

History

Jorge de Menezes, a Portuguese explorer, landed on Waigeo Island in 1526–27. Islam first arrived in the Raja Ampat archipelago in the 15th century due to political and economic contacts with the Bacan Sultanate.Wanggai, Toni V. M. (2008)
Rekonstruki sejarah umat Islam di tanna Papua
econstruction of the History of lslam in Papua Syariff Hidayatullah State Islamic University Jakarta (in Indonesian). Retrieved 2022-03-13. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the Sultante of Tidore had close economic ties with the island.Slama, Martin (2015),
Papua as an Islamic Frontier: Preaching in 'the Jungle' and the Multiplicity of Spatio-Temporal Hierarchisations", ''From 'Stone-Age' to 'Real-Time': Exploring Papuan Temporalities, Mobilities and Religiosities''
ANU Press, pp. 243–270, During this period, Islam became firmly established and local chiefs had begun adopting Islam.

Alfred Russel Wallace Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was a British natural history, naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution thro ...

spent some time on the island and studied the flora and fauna during the late 1850s while on his scientific exploration trip. Since 1997, the island has been the site of a substantial

pearl farming A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carb ...

operation owned by the Australian company Atlas Pacific.

Languages

Languages spoken on Waigeo include Papuan Malay,

Biak Biak is an island located in Cenderawasih Bay near the northern coast of Papua, an Indonesian province, and is just northwest of New Guinea. Biak is the largest island in its small archipelago, and has many atolls, reefs, and corals. The ...

, Ma'ya, and Ambel. Their distributions within the island are given below. * '' Ambel'' is spoken in central Waigeo. * '' Ma'ya'' is spoken in northwest Waigeo. * ''

'' is spoken in the southwest and eastern parts of Waigeo.

Fauna and flora

* Waigeo brushturkey (''Aepypodius bruijnii'') *

Waigeou cuscus The Waigeou cuscus or Waigeou spotted cuscus (''Spilocuscus papuensis'') is a species of marsupial in the family Phalangeridae. It is endemic to the island of Waigeo in Indonesia, and consequently the spelling Waigeo cuscus is often used instead ...

(''Spilocuscus papuensis'') * Waigeo rainbowfish (''Melanotaenia catherinae'') * Waigeo seaperch (''Psammoperca waigiensis'') *

Wilson's bird-of-paradise Wilson's bird-of-paradise (''Cicinnurus respublica'') is a species of passerine bird of the family Paradisaeidae. The first footage of the Wilson's bird-of-paradise ever to be filmed was recorded in 1996 by David Attenborough for the BBC documen ...

(''Diphyllodes respublica'') * Golden-spotted tree monitor (''Varanus boehmei'') * '' Achaea simplex'' * '' Hypochlorosis ancharia'' * '' Hypolycaena phorbas'' * '' Karstarma waigeo'' * '' Nepenthes danseri''

Protected Areas

* Waigeo Barat Timur Nature Reserve protects much of the island's interior. * Raja Ampat Marine Park covers Mayalibit Bay in central Waigeo, and parts of the southern and southwestern shores.Raja Ampat Marine Park. Accessed 8 August 2021
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References

External links

* {{Authority control Raja Ampat Islands