Supiori is an island of the

Schouten Islands The Biak Islands (, also Schouten Islands or Geelvink Islands) are an island group of Southwest Papua province, eastern Indonesia in the Cenderawasih Bay (or Geelvink Bay) 50 km off the north-western coast of the island of New Guinea. Th ...

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 ...

Cenderawasih Bay Cenderawasih Bay (, "Bird of Paradise Bay"), also known as Sarera Bay () and formerly Geelvink Bay (), is a large bay in northern Province of Papua, Central Papua and West Papua, New Guinea, Indonesia. Geography ''Cenderawasih Bay'' is a lar ...

, just west of

Biak Biak is the main island of Biak Archipelago located in Cenderawasih Bay near the northern coast of Papua (province), Papua, an Indonesian province, and is just northwest of New Guinea. Biak has many atolls, reefs, and corals. The largest popula ...

island in

Papua Province Papua is a province of Indonesia, comprising the northern coast of Western New Guinea together with island groups in Cenderawasih Bay to the west. It roughly follows the borders of the Papuan customary region of Tabi Saireri, and is divided in ...

Western New Guinea Western New Guinea, also known as Papua, Indonesian New Guinea, and Indonesian Papua, is the western half of the island of New Guinea, formerly Dutch and granted to Indonesia in 1962. Given the island is alternatively named Papua, the region ...

, northeastern

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, ...

Description

The island has a rugged terrain, largely covered in

tropical rainforest Tropical rainforests are dense and warm rainforests with high rainfall typically found between 10° north and south of the Equator. They are a subset of the tropical forest biome that occurs roughly within the 28° latitudes (in the torrid zo ...

. It is about long and wide, covering a total area of (including small offshore islands such as

Rani ''Rani'' () is a female title, equivalent to queen, for royal or princely rulers in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It translates to 'queen' in English. It is also a Sanskrit Hindu feminine given name. The term applies equally to a ...

but excluding the neighbouring Aruri Archipelago. Its highest point is in elevation. Principal settlements include Korido on the south coast and Yenggarbun on the north coast. South of Supiori lie the small coral islands ''Aruri'' (Insumbabi) and

. Before 1963, the island was part of the colonial

Netherlands New Guinea Dutch New Guinea or Netherlands New Guinea (, ) was the Western New Guinea, western half of the island of New Guinea that was a part of the Dutch East Indies until 1949, later an overseas administrative territorial entity, overseas territory of ...

. It comprises

Supiori Regency Supiori Regency () is a regency in the Indonesian province of Papua. The Regency has an area of 634.24 km2 including the Aruri Islands group to the south, and had a population of 15,874 at the 2010 CensusBiro Pusat Statistik, Jakarta, 2011. and 22 ...

within

History

The island was first sighted by Europeans by the Portuguese

Jorge de Menezes Jorge de Menezes (also spelt Meneses) (c. 1498 – 1537) was a Portuguese explorer. Due to a monsoon, he was forced to reside in Versya, posited by Pieter Anton Tiele as Waisai, between 1526 and 1527. Menezes called the region ''Ilhas dos Papuas' ...

in 1526. Menezes landed at Biak Islands, where he was forced to winter. One of the first sightings was also made by the Spanish navigator Álvaro de Saavedra on 24 June 1528, when trying to return from

Tidore Tidore (, lit. "City of Tidore Islands") is a city, island, and archipelago in the Maluku Islands of eastern Indonesia, west of the larger island of Halmahera. Part of North Maluku Province, the city includes the island of Tidore (with three sm ...

New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( ; Nahuatl: ''Yankwik Kaxtillan Birreiyotl''), originally the Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain. It was one of several ...

. The Schoutens were charted as Islas de Oro (Golden Islands in Spanish). Its sighting was again reported by Spanish navigator Íñigo Órtiz de Retes in 1545. It was charted as ''Los Martires'' by the Spaniards, possibly because it was where Spanish navigator Hernando de Grijalva was murdered by his mutinied crew.Hamy, Ernst T. "Comentarios sobre algunas cartas antiguas de la Nueva Guinea para servir a la historia del descubrimiento de aquel país por los navegantes españoles (1528-1606)," translated by Martín Ferreiro and included in the work of Justo Zaragoza in ''Boletín de la Sociedad Geográfica de Madrid'', tIV, primer semestre, 1878, p.44

References

Schouten Islands Islands of Western New Guinea Landforms of Papua (province) Cenderawasih Bay Biak–Numfoor rain forests Islands of Oceania {{Papua-geo-stub