ABSTRACT
The Province of Maluku is located in the eastern part of Indonesia, and since October 1999 has been confined to the southern Moluccas (Maluku Islands), following the creation of a separate North Maluku (Maluku Utara) province. The original Maluku province, established in 1950, was said to consist of about 1,000 islands, so it was known better as the ‘Thousand Island Province’ (Propinsi Seribu Pulau). The Maluku province of today contains about three-fifths of the land area of the pre-1999 province. The origin of the name of the Moluccan Islands is said to be from the Arabic, al-Muluk, meaning ‘of the kings’, which referred to the ‘Spice Islands’ ruled by four kingdoms—Bacan, Jailolo, Ternate and Tidore—all of which now lie within North Maluku. However, the original centre of the spice trade (in nutmeg, at least) is the small group of the Banda Islands, which still lie in Maluku. They have given their name to the Banda Sea, which surrounds them and is ringed by the main islands of the province: in the north, the main group of Seram (the largest island of Maluku), Ambon and Buru; and to the south, the tail end of the Lesser Sundas, notably Wetar (to the west of which are the islands of East Nusa Tenggara—Nusa Tenggara Timur), Leti, Babar and the Tanimbar Islands. Kai lies between, east of Banda and marking the eastern limit of the Banda Sea, with the Aru archipelago lying between it and the Papuan mainland still further east. The Arafura Sea to the south is part of the Indian Ocean. The sovereign state of Timor-Leste (East Timor—the Indonesian province of Timor Timur between 1975 and 2002) lies south of Wetar and west of Leti. To the north is the Seram Sea and the islands of the northern Moluccas, grouped administratively as North Maluku.
