Halmahera, formerly known as Jilolo, Gilolo, or Jailolo, is the largest

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

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 ...

. It is part of the

North Maluku North Maluku (; ) is a province of Indonesia. It covers the northern part of the Maluku Islands, bordering the Pacific Ocean to the north, the Halmahera Sea to the east, the Molucca Sea to the west, and the Seram Sea to the south. It shares marit ...

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

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, ...

, and Sofifi, the capital of the province, is located on the west coast of the island. Halmahera has a land area of . It is the largest island of Indonesia outside the five main islands. It had a population of 162,728 in 1995; by 2010, it had increased to 449,938 for the island itself (excluding the tip which is considered part of the Joronga Islands, but including

Gebe Gebe is an island in Maluku Islands, Indonesia, between Raja Ampat and Halmahera. Administratively it is part of Central Halmahera, North Maluku. The island is part of a small island group which also includes Fau island, Yoi, Uta, and Sain. ...

and Ju islands) and 667,161 for the island group (including all of South Halmahera and Tidore, but not

Ternate Ternate (), also known as the City of Ternate (; ), is the List of regencies and cities of Indonesia, city with the largest population in the province of North Maluku and an island in the Maluku Islands, Indonesia. It was the ''de facto'' provi ...

). Approximately half of the island's inhabitants are

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

and half are

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

History

Sparsely-populated Halmahera's fortunes have long been closely tied to those of the smaller islands of

and Tidore, both off its west coast. This island was the site of Sultanate of Jailolo, one of the four kingdoms of Maluku (''Maloko Kië Raha'', of

, Tidore, Bacan, and Jailolo) in the era before

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...

colonized the entire archipelago. The north of the island is also the base of Loloda Kingdom, one of the earlier 13th century Moluccan kingdoms, but not recognized as one of the prominent four. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Halmahera was the site of a Japanese naval base at Kao Bay. In 1999 and 2000, Halmahera was the site of violence that began as a purely ethnic dispute between residents of (mainly Christian) Kao and (entirely Muslim) Malifut sub-districts and then took on a religious nature as it spread through much of the North Moluccas, called the

Maluku sectarian conflict The Maluku sectarian conflict (Indonesian language, Indonesian: ''Konflik Sektarian Kepulauan Maluku'') was a period of ethno-political conflict along religious lines that occurred in the Maluku Islands in Indonesia, with particularly serious ...

. Thousands of people on Halmahera were killed in the fighting between religious militias. In June 2000, about five hundred people were killed when a

ferry A ferry is a boat or ship that transports passengers, and occasionally vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A small passenger ferry with multiple stops, like those in Venice, Italy, is sometimes referred to as a water taxi or water bus ...

carrying

refugee A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...

s from the fighting on Halmahera sank off the northeast tip of

Sulawesi Sulawesi ( ), also known as Celebes ( ), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the List of islands by area, world's 11th-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Min ...

island. Conspiracy theories about this event abound. A memorial to this tragedy can be found in Duma village in North Halmahera district. Today, much transportation to the rest of Indonesia is through connections on the provincial capital,

island although Tobelo, the largest town on Halmahera, also has direct ferry and cargo sea links to

Surabaya Surabaya is the capital city of East Java Provinces of Indonesia, province and the List of Indonesian cities by population, second-largest city in Indonesia, after Jakarta. Located on the northeastern corner of Java island, on the Madura Strai ...

and

Manado Manado (, ) is the capital City status in Indonesia, city of the Indonesian Provinces of Indonesia, province of North Sulawesi. It is the second largest city in Sulawesi after Makassar, with the 2020 census giving a population of 451,916,Badan ...

. Particularly, since the inauguration of the first ever directly elected Bupati (Regent or District Head), Tobelo is undergoing rapid development and is aiming at rivaling Ternate's historical dominance. As it is surrounded by flat land, Tobelo has the potential for expansion. Ternate is limited by its size, being a small island which can be driven around in forty-five minutes. Also, in 2010, the provincial government moved the provincial capital from Ternate City to Sofifi, a small village on the Halmahera coast opposite Tidore island. North Maluku Province consists of eight regencies and two municipalities (cities); five of the regencies and one municipality include a part of Halmahera island. The regencies are North Halmahera, West Halmahera, East Halmahera, Central Halmahera, South Halmahera, Morotai, Sula Islands and Taliabu, while the municipalities are

and Tidore Islands. Only Ternate Municipality, and Morotai, the Sula Islands and Taliabu regencies do not include any part of Halmahera. The coastal area of Halmahera is inhabited by the Tobelo people (or the ''O’Hoberera Manyawa'' (literally "people that live outside of the forest")), while a small semi-nomadic related population lives on the inner parts of Halmahera, the Togutil people (or the ''O'Hongana Manyawa'' (literally "people that live inside of the forest")) with an estimated 1,500-3,000 people (according to studies of ethnologists since 2001). Somewhere between 300-500 people live in isolation in the forest in the Aketajawe-Lolobata National Park where they obtain their means of subsistence. Uncontacted members are being threatened by a massive Indonesian mining project to produce nickel for electric car batteries.

Geology

The volcanic island lies on an

island arc Island arcs are long archipelago, chains of active volcanoes with intense earthquake, seismic activity found along convergent boundary, convergent plate tectonics, tectonic plate boundaries. Most island arcs originate on oceanic crust and have re ...

that includes the

Raja Ampat Islands Raja Ampat (), or the Four Kings, is an archipelago located off of the northwest tip of Bird's Head Peninsula (on the island of New Guinea), Southwest Papua , Southwest Papua province, Indonesia. It comprises over 1,500 small islands, cays, and sh ...

, all uplifted by the northward migration of the continent of Australia and subduction of the Pacific Plate. Dukono is an active volcano at the north end of the island. Mount Ibu is an active volcano on the island's northwest coast.

Ultramafic Ultramafic rocks (also referred to as ultrabasic rocks, although the terms are not wholly equivalent) are igneous and meta-igneous rocks with a very low silica content (less than 45%), generally >18% MgO, high FeO, low potassium, and are usua ...

rocks and

ophiolites An ophiolite is a section of Earth's oceanic crust and the underlying upper mantle (Earth), upper mantle that has been uplifted and exposed, and often emplaced onto continental crustal rocks. The Greek word ὄφις, ''ophis'' (''snake'') is ...

form the bedrock over large areas of the eastern peninsula.

Ecology

The

flightless Flightless birds are birds that cannot fly, as they have, through evolution, lost the ability to. There are over 60 extant species, including the well-known ratites ( ostriches, emus, cassowaries, rheas, and kiwis) and penguins. The smal ...

invisible rail is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to the island. The recently discovered palm tree '' Jailoloa halmaherensis'' is also endemic to Halmahera. The 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 ...

visited Halmahera, as described in 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 ...

''. He considered the

standardwing The standardwing bird-of-paradise (''Semioptera wallacii''), also known as Wallace's standardwing or as the standardwing, is a species of bird-of-paradise. It is the only member in Monotypic taxon, monotypic genus ''Semioptera''. Etymology Georg ...

bird of paradise, ''Semioptera wallacii'', to be his greatest prize. It was in February 1858, on the island of

(or perhaps while on Halmahera itself), between bouts of fever, that Wallace came to the idea of natural selection via the survival of the fittest. Wallace wrote his ideas during the next couple of days, and sent the historical letter to Darwin.

Mining

Halmahera is the site of several

mining Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...

projects. PT Weda Bay Nickel operates a nickel and cobalt mining project in North and Central Halmahera Regencies, the Weda Bay Industrial Park. It is one of the world's largest nickel mining operations. The Indonesian government has prohibited the export of unprocessed nickel ore since 2022. As a result, the ore must first be processed on the island before being exported. A total of 11 (with three more in construction) power plants have already been built for this process. The park is likely to get even bigger. Several investors have already been found willing to invest. The increased demand for nickel for batteries is one of the reasons for the growth.

Image gallery

File:Weda Bay Nickel site.jpg, A Weda Bay nickel camp site at Tanjung Ulie cape on Halmahera island File:Rig Crew on Halmahera Island.jpg, A rig crew looking for minerals File:Halmahera_Island.jpg, Tropical Rainforest on Halmahera island File:Edge_of_Aketajawe-Lolobata_National_Park.jpg, Edge of Aketajawe-Lolobata National park

References

External links

* {{Authority control Islands of the Maluku Islands Landforms of North Maluku Populated places in Indonesia Islands of Indonesia