Timor, island of the Malay Archipelago, easternmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands between the Savu and Timor seas. Western Timor, with an area of 6,120 square miles (15,850 square km), is administered as part of Nusa Tenggara Timur provinsi (“province”), Indonesia. The eastern half of the island, 5,641 square miles (14,609 square km) in area, is the independent state of East Timor; East Timor also includes the enclave of Ambeno on the western half of the island, as well as two small islands.
Timor is mountainous, with some coastal plains that merge into regularly flooded mangrove swamps. The highest point is Mount Tatamailau (Tata Mailau; 9,721 feet [2,963 metres]). The tropical climate is dry during the southeast monsoon and wet during the short, irregular west monsoon (December to March). Annual precipitation (averaging 58 inches [1,475 mm]) and the start of the wet season vary greatly. There are forests of eucalyptus, bamboo, moss-hung casuarina, and sandalwood; coconut palm groves; tall-grass and low-tree savannas; and, at higher levels, grazing lands. Animal life includes marsupials, crocodiles, cockatoos, pigeons, doves, deer, monkeys, and snakes.
The coastal inhabitants are largely of Indonesian Malay ancestry, having driven the predominantly Melanesian aboriginal peoples to the mountains. Dozens of Papuan and Malayan languages are spoken, as well as Indonesian in the west and Portuguese in the east. Some Islamic and Christian inroads have been made, but animism and ancestor worship predominate. Each village has a sacred house with a custodian priest and a surrounding taboo area. Because of former coastal warfare, villages and isolated houses are surrounded by stockades. Houses are usually raised on piles.
The Portuguese began trading with Timor, probably for sandalwood, about 1520. In 1613 the Dutch established themselves in Kupang, on a sheltered bay at the southwestern tip of the island, and the Portuguese moved to the north and east. Treaties effective in 1860 and 1914 between Portugal and the Netherlands divided the island and set the boundaries that existed until 1975, when Indonesian troops invaded and occupied East Timor. The territory subsequently became an Indonesian province. The East Timorese population strongly resisted Indonesian rule, and in 1999 East Timor was granted independence as a non-self-governing territory under United Nations supervision; the territory gained full sovereignty in May 2002.
Dili, or Dilly, on the northern coast, was the capital and port of Portuguese Timor and then the seat of the Indonesian province of Timor Timur; it is now the capital of East Timor. Through this time East Timor has included the Ambeno enclave surrounding the town of Pante Makasar, on the northwestern coast, as well as the offshore islands of Atauro (Kambing) and Jaco. East Timor was occupied by Japan during World War II. Before 1975 more than four-fifths of export revenues were derived from coffee; other exports included hides, tea, rubber, and copra.
Kupang is the capital city and port of Nusa Tenggara Timur province, formerly Dutch, or Netherlands, Timor. Except for a British interregnum (1812–15), western Timor was Dutch-occupied until the Japanese occupation during World War II. Briefly (1946–49) included in the Dutch-sponsored state of East Indonesia, the territory became part of Indonesia in 1950.
Economic progress was impossible on the remote, semiarid island until after Dutch pacification of the local peoples in the early years of the 20th century. Shifting cultivation and the production of dry rice, corn (maize), and sweet potatoes constituted the traditional agriculture. Soil erosion and deforestation are now under better control, and irrigation aids the cultivation of wet rice. The main native manufactures are cotton cloth and finely patterned baskets. Iron weapons and tools are forged, and brass ornaments are cast by the lost-wax process.