Lesser Sunda Islands

The Little Sunda Islands are a group of islands in the Malay Archipelago. Along with the Great Sunda Islands they form the Sunda Islands.

Geography

The archipelago consists of six large and numerous small islands, which are located east of Java. Together, they have an area of ​​about 87,700 km ².

Like a chain lined up directly east of Java ( west to east ) Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores, Solor and Alor Archipelago and Atauro. South of this form Sumba, the Sawuinseln and the Timor Archipelago ( with Roti and Timor ) to the west of also running in the east-west direction outer Banda arc. It was created by the unfolding of the seabed.

North of Timor and east of Atauro closes with Wetar the first of the long drawn eastward Barat Daya Islands, in German South West ( he ) called islands. You belong to, as well as the east of Timor nearby island groups, which extend in a chain up to the Aru Islands, but already the Indonesian province of Maluku.

The eastern part of Timor is the independent state of East Timor, together with the Oecusse enclave westtimoresischen and the small islands of Atauro and Jaco. The rest of the island belongs to Indonesia and forms the Nusa Tenggara region ( Indonesian " Southeast Islands "), which is divided into the provinces of Bali, West Nusa Tenggara and East Nusa Tenggara.

The Little Sunda Islands are mostly of volcanic origin. In an oceanic subduction zone here the north-west corner of the Australian plate subducted under the Eurasian plate. This leads among other things to a growth of the mountain chain on Timor, the entire island from the south-west, runs through the central highlands to the northeast. Accordingly, the islands are mountainous. The highest elevation is the Rinjani on Lombok with 3726 meters. Crops are rice and coffee. In mineral resources, there are petroleum, iron, manganese and copper.

With the exception of Bali include the little Sunda Islands to Wallacea, the biological transition area between Australia and Asia. After the Komodo Komodo Island is named, the largest living lizard.

Population

On the Little Sunda Islands live about 12 million inhabitants. They usually speak Malayo - Polynesian languages ​​, further to the east but increasingly Papua languages.

On the island of Flores in 2003 fossils of a diminutive species of the genus Homo were discovered and named after her as Homo floresiensis.