Manatuto (, ) is one of the

municipalities A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

(formerly districts) of

East Timor Timor-Leste, also known as East Timor, officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is a country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the coastal exclave of Oecusse in the island's northwest, and ...

, located in the central part of the country. It has a population of 45,541 (Census 2010) and an area of 1,783.3 km². The capital of the municipality is also named

Manatuto Manatuto is a city in Manatuto Municipality, East Timor. Manatuto Vila has 3,692 inhabitants (Census 2015) and is capital of the subdistrict and district Manatuto. It is on the north coast of Timor, (about as the crow flies) east of Dili ...

. It is the least populated

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

of East Timor.

Etymology

The word ''Manatuto'' has been said to be a Portuguese approximation of the local Tetum and Galoli language word ''Manatutu'', which means 'pecking birds'. According to another source, the word is a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

of the Tetum words ''Mana'' and ''tutu'', which mean 'old woman' and 'peak' or 'summit', respectively. The legend goes that two groups of people were each living on the summit of a hill, one of them named Sau Raha (now Soraha) and the other Sau Lor (now Saulidun). The two groups were engaged separately in their own daily activities, but each was accompanied by one of two Liurai, who were brothers.

Geography

The borders of the municipality of Manatuto are identical to those of the council of Portuguese Timor with the same name. The municipality borders the municipalities of Baucau and Viqueque to the east and Manufahi, Aileu, and

Dili Dili (Portuguese language, Portuguese and Tetum language, Tetum: ''Díli'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Timor-Leste. It lies on the northern coast of the island of Timor, in a small area of flat land hemmed in by mountai ...

to the west. It reaches both the south and north coasts of the island, and is only one of two municipalities to do so (the other is Lautém in the far east), and has the most geographical diversity. To the north is the Strait of Wetar, to the south is the

Timor Sea The Timor Sea (, , or ) is a relatively shallow sea in the Indian Ocean bounded to the north by the island of Timor with Timor-Leste to the north, Indonesia to the northwest, Arafura Sea to the east, and to the south by Australia. The Sunda Tr ...

History

According to a list prepared by , governor of the colony of Portuguese Timor from 1859 to 1863, Manatuto was one of 47 kingdoms in that colony at the time.

Administrative posts

The municipality's administrative posts (formerly sub-districts) are: * Barique-Natarbora (pop. 4,900) * Laclo (pop. 6,400) * Laclubar (pop. 10,100) * Laleia (pop. 3,200) *

(pop. 11,500) * Soibada (pop. 2,950) The administrative posts are divided into 29 sucos ("villages") in total.

Demographics

In addition to the official languages of East Timor ( Tetum and Portuguese), a large part of the population of the municipality speaks the

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 ...

Galoli, which is designated as a "national language" by the constitution.

Notable people

The municipality is known as the birthplace of Xanana Gusmão, later to become the nation's first president. He was born in the village of Laleia (19 km East of Manatuto town).

References

Notes

Bibliography

* * *

External links

* – official site (in Tetum with some content in English) * – information page on Ministry of State Administration site {{Authority control Municipalities of Timor-Leste