Sunda Archipelago. Greater Sunda Islands: description, photos. What country is the Western Lesser Sunda Islands in?

In front of you detailed map Western Lesser Sunda Islands with names of cities and settlements in Russian. Move the map while holding it with the left mouse button. You can move around the map by clicking on one of the four arrows in the upper left corner. You can change the scale using the scale on the right side of the map or turning the mouse wheel.

What country is the Western Lesser Sunda Islands in?

The Western Lesser Sunda Islands are located in Indonesia. This is wonderful a nice place, with its own history and traditions. Coordinates of the Western Lesser Sunda Islands: north latitude and east longitude (show on large map).

Virtual walk

The “little man” figurine above the scale will help you make virtual walk on the cities of the Western Lesser Sunda Islands. By clicking and holding the left mouse button, drag it to any place on the map and you will go for a walk, while inscriptions with the approximate address of the area will appear in the upper left corner. Select the direction of movement by clicking on the arrows in the center of the screen. The “Satellite” option at the top left allows you to see a relief image of the surface. In the "Map" mode you will have the opportunity to familiarize yourself in detail with highways Western Lesser Sunda Islands and main attractions.

Stretching in a chain to the east of the Indonesian island of Java, they are home to unique plants and animals. Thus, in the dense forests covering the territory of the islands, Rafflesia Arnoldi grows - the largest flower in the world, the diameter of which reaches 1 m, and the weight is more than 10 kg. It is interesting that this plant does not have roots, stems or leaves as such: it all consists of a giant flower that emits a disgusting smell of rotten meat.

There is also another unusual plant called sweet howenia, or candy tree. Its fruits - inconspicuous dry balls - are inedible, but their thick stalks contain up to 50% sucrose and taste like raisins soaked in rum.

On the island of Komodo, also part of the system, terrible monsters live, in their own way appearance very similar to prehistoric lizards. It's about about giant reptiles - monitor lizards, which, by the will of the Dutch pilot, the first European to encounter them in 1911, are referred to as “dragons of Komodo Island.” The name is quite justified: monitor lizards reach a length of 3.5 m and weigh about 150 kg. The monsters have a brutal appetite: four-centimeter teeth allow them to easily tear meat into pieces and then swallow them. There is a known case when a hungry monitor lizard ate half the carcass of a boar entirely. And one day, four dragons dealt with the corpse of a large deer in about an hour.

Inanimate nature also presents many miracles. Just look at the colorful lakes of Keli Mutu, located on the island of Flores! The huge depressions of the Keli Lepembusu volcano were gradually filled with rainwater, and thus amazing reservoirs arose, each of which is characterized by a special color of water. The first lake - Tivoe Ata Polo (Lake of Enchanted People) - is crimson-red, the second - Tivoe Noza Moeri Koo Fai (Lake of Youths and Maidens) - is dark green, and the waters of the third - Tivoe Ata Mboepoe - are distinguished by their transparency and delicate malachite green color . How did the water in lakes located at a distance of 10-15 m from each other acquire such different colors?

The fact is that the rocks that form the bottom and shores of the first lake contain a lot of iron. Dissolving in water, it reacts with atmospheric oxygen and forms iron oxide, which has a red-brown color. The lava that makes up the basins of the other two lakes differs from that indicated in chemical composition.

Of course, among local residents There are legends that explain in their own way the unusual color of the water in the Keli Mutu lakes. But no matter how you approach this issue, reservoirs will still not lose their uniqueness, being real natural phenomena.

The Sunda Islands are an archipelago in South-East Asia- this is between Quiet and Indian Ocean. It is located between New Guinea and the Malay Peninsula. It consists of large and many small islands, most of which belong to Indonesia. Kalimantan - Northern part islands belonging to Malaysia. Part of the island belongs to the state of East Timor, a small part to the state of Brunei. There are more than 3,000 islands in the archipelago. The area of ​​the archipelago is 1.6 million km². The islands are divided into the Greater Sunda Islands and the Lesser Sunda Islands.

The Big ones include Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi. The Lesser Sunda Islands are Bali, Barat Daya, Lombok, Sumbawa, Savu, Timor, Flores. The area of ​​the Greater Sunda Islands is 1.5 million km², the area of ​​the Lesser Islands is 128 thousand km².

The territory of the islands is mainly mountainous, with quite extensive lowlands in Sumatra and Kalimantan. The archipelago has more than 130 volcanoes and belongs to a zone of seismic activity. The South China and Arafura seas wash the archipelago from the outside. Within the archipelago, the interisland seas are the Java Sea, the Sulu Sea, Sulawesi, Savu, Flores, Banda, Seram, Moluccas, Timor. Equatorial and sea tropical air dominates here, the temperature in January is + 24 ° C, in July + 32 ° C, constantly high humidity, precipitation a large number of precipitation is from 2000 to 3000 mm per year. Evergreen forests, with occasional shrouds. Vegetable and animal world rich and varied.

Malay archipelago geographical

Greater Sunda Islands

The Greater Sunda Islands (Indian: Kepulauan Sunda Besar, Sund: Kapuloan Sunda Gedе) are a group of islands within Indonesia. Together with the Lesser Sunda Islands they form the Sunda Archipelago.

The Greater Sunda Islands represent the border between Pacific Ocean(more precisely, one of its seas, the South China Sea) and the Indian Ocean. WITH with total area At 1.5 million km² and with a population of about 180 million inhabitants, the Greater Sunda Islands are the largest island group in the world (only Greenland is slightly larger in area).

The Greater Sunda Islands include Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, Bali and some others. In total, the Malay Archipelago has about 10,000 islands as part of the Sunda group. The Sunda Archipelago closes the tip of the main fire belt Eastern Hemisphere. Indonesia accounts for the most active part of this belt. There are 63 volcanoes here, of which 37 are active.

Noteworthy is the dormant volcano in the southeast of the island of Luzon, called Mayon (“beautiful”). Its height is 2462 m. Over the past 2 centuries, Mayon has erupted about 20 times.

The large number of victims is explained by the fact that the disaster occurred on the very day when believers gathered on the volcano for a sacrifice ceremony that takes place once every 100 years.

The eruption of Tambora (2821 m) on the island of Sumbawa occurred in 1815. 3 years before this disaster, the volcano showed concern. Numerous cracks formed on its slopes near the top, from which jets of hot gas hissed out. Gases in the Tambora volcanic channel exploded on April 5, 1815. The volcano had a height of 4 km, but the explosion tore off its top. Almost 100 km of rock turned into fragments, and the height of the hill was reduced by 1200 m. In place of the top of the cone was a very wide caldera, the depth of which reached 700 m and a width of 6 x 6.5 km. A monstrous roar was heard within a radius of 1,400 km - on Kalimantan, Java, Sulawesi, Timor and other islands.

The largest Sunda Islands are of considerable age. It is part of the landmass of Southeast Asia, largely built up by volcanoes.

Tremors periodically shake the island of Sumbawa, reminiscent of the 1815 eruption of the region's tallest volcano, Tambora, the geological structure of which is shown. Tambora's eruption killed 92,000 people.

About 5 million years ago, almost all of these islands had land connections, but when the level of the World Ocean rose significantly at the end of the Ice Age, the land areas immediately became isolated.

The Keli Mutu (Kelimutu) volcano has three craters, each containing a lake with colored water: one is blue, the other is scarlet, the third is milky white. The water in the first two acquired color due to copper and iron salts, and in the third - due to the work of sulfur bacteria.

Since then, volcanic processes have proceeded very rapidly, as a result of which many real volcanic islands have arisen in the vicinity of the former mainland. Violent volcanism, characteristic of many islands from the Sunda group to this day, significantly affects the local topography, changing their outlines.

Where are the Greater Sunda Islands? They belong Malay Archipelago. The islands are located in the region between two oceans - the Pacific and Indian. In the north they border with

a brief description of

The area of ​​the islands is just over 1.5 million square meters. km. They consist of 4 large islands, as well as a large number of small ones, such as Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi, etc. The Greater Sunda Islands are the largest island group on the planet. The islands are home to about 180 million people.

Let's take a closer look at some of the islands from this group.

Kalimantan

The largest of the Greater Sunda Islands is Kalimantan (another name is Borneo). Its area is 743 thousand square meters. km. It is one of the three largest islands on the planet. Another feature of the island is that its territory is divided between several countries: Brunei, Malaysia and Indonesia. Kalimantan is washed by 4 seas and 2 straits. If we compare all the Greater Sunda Islands, then only Kalimantan is dominated by flat terrain. However, mountainous terrain is also present on this landmass. The most high peak islands - the city of Kinabalu (more than 4 thousand m). Also on the territory of Borneo is the active Bombalay volcano. The river system is also relatively densely represented. The largest river is Kapuas. It has a length of more than one thousand kilometers. Other large rivers- Barito, Mahakam, Rajang.

Sumatra

Located to the west of Kalimantan. In such a system as the Greater Sunda Islands, it ranks second in size, and in the world ranking - sixth. Its area is more than 470 thousand square meters. km. Territorially belongs to the state of Indonesia. The border of the equator runs through the central part of the island, dividing this area of ​​land into two identical parts located in different hemispheres. Sumatra has an elongated shape. The southwestern part of the island is dominated by mountainous terrain, where there is a large amount of active volcanoes. Sumatra is a seismically active region of the planet. Earthquakes are a common occurrence here. The highest point is the Kerinchi volcano (3,800 m). The rest of the island is flat. There are many rivers in Sumatra.

Sulawesi

The third largest island is Sulawesi, with an area of ​​174 thousand square meters. km. Located east of Kalimantan. It is washed by two seas - Banda and Sulawesi, and the very shape of this island is unique and interesting. It consists of four distinct, elongated peninsulas that connect in the western part. These so-called branches are mainly of the plain type. The population lives precisely in these territories. The central part is mountainous, and therefore the connection between the peninsulas is quite complex.

Java

When describing the Greater Sunda Islands, one cannot help but talk about Java. This is the smallest of all that are included in this system. Java has an area of ​​about 130 thousand square meters. km. The island is very elongated from east to west. Its length is more than one thousand kilometers. This piece of land belongs to the state and is located on this island. Its central territory is occupied by mountains, the rest is jungle. The population lives mainly on the coast of the island, since at a distance from it there are simply no conditions for a normal life for people.

Conclusion

The Greater Sunda Islands belong to the equatorial climatic zone, and also have rich flora and fauna. This territory is not deprived of mineral resources. There are large reserves of tin and oil here. The population is engaged in tropical agriculture, actively exporting spices, rubber, rice, tea and coconut palm products.

Sunda Islands indon. Kepulauan Sunda, sund. Kapuloan Sunda
File:Indonesia 2002 CIA map.jpg
2°00′ S w. 110°00′ E. d. /  2.000° S. w. 110.000° E. d. / -2.000; 110.000 Coordinates:
Water area	Indian Ocean
Number of islands	more than 3000 islands
Largest island	Kalimantan
total area	1,700,000 km²
Highest point	4095 m
Countries	Indonesia 22x20px Indonesia Malaysia 22x20px Malaysia Brunei 22x20px Brunei East Timor 22x20px East Timor
Population (2010)	244,900,000 people
Population density	144,059 people/km²
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Geography

Coordinates extreme points: western - o. Broech, 95 gr. E.D., 5.5 gr. northern latitude, eastern - about. Vaigeo, 131 gr. E.D., 0 gr. latitude, northern - about. Bungay, 177.5 gr. E.D., 7 gr. northern latitude, southern - o. Roti, Cape Bois, 123 g. E, 11 degrees S

The total area of ​​the archipelago is more than 1.7 million km².

The Sunda Islands are divided into two groups:

• Greater Sunda Islands: Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi.
• Lesser Sunda Islands: Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa, Sumba, Timor, Barat Daya, Flores, Savu and others.

The Greater Sunda Islands have an area of ​​1.5 million km², the Lesser Sunda Islands - 128 thousand km², the Maluku Islands - 83.7 thousand km². Most large island- Kalimantan (Borneo) - area 734 thousand km². In total, the archipelago includes more than 3,000 islands.

All of the Greater and most of the Lesser Sunda Islands are surrounded by many very small islands. The Mentawai archipelago (of which the largest is Siberut) occupies a special place near Sumatra. In the east, the Selatan-Timur group includes the Tanimbar Islands, Kai Islands, and Aru Islands. The Moluccas include the islands of Halmahera, Seram, Morotai, Misool, the islands of Obi, Buru, etc. Some experts consider the Moluccas to be a separate archipelago, which is essentially a pure convention. Together with the neighboring Philippine archipelago, Sunda makes up a larger entity - the Malay Archipelago.

The Sunda Islands are predominantly mountainous, but there are two large lowlands in Kalimantan and one in Sumatra. Highest points islands: Kinabalu, 4100 m (Kalimantan), Kerinchi, 3805 m (Sumatra), Semeru, 3676 m (Java), Rantokombola, 3455 m (Sulawesi), Segara-Rinjani on the island. Lombok, 3676 m (Lesser Sunda), on the island. Seram, 3018 m. There are more than 130 volcanoes on the archipelago; this is a zone of increased seismic activity.

From the outside, the archipelago is washed by the South China Sea and the Arafura Sea. There are numerous inland seas within the archipelago (see list below): The rivers are mostly mountainous, short and stormy. The largest rivers are in Kalimantan: Kapuas, Barrito, Kayan, Rajang; in Sumatra - Hari, originates on the Kerinci volcano.

The Sunda Islands share the following interisland seas:

The climate of the Sunda archipelago is equatorial and subequatorial (in the southern part of the archipelago). The forests are humid evergreen, with shrouds found in some places. The temperature in January is 24 °C above zero, in July it reaches 32 °C above zero. There is a lot of precipitation. In Kalimantan and west coast Sumatra - 3000 mm/year. In other areas - 2000 or more. The flora and fauna are very rich.

Story

Population

The archipelago is inhabited by numerous peoples of different cultural levels, related in language, speaking languages ​​​​of the Indonesian linguistic branch, which is part of more large family Austronesian languages.

Economy

Minerals: petroleum, tin, bauxite, nickel, copper, manganese, zinc, chromium, lead. 60% of the territory is occupied by forests with valuable tropical tree species. In the Lesser Sunda Islands, the land is predominantly occupied by agricultural land, rice, corn and industrial crops. In agricultural and industrial terms, the most developed island is Java.

see also

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Literature

• Geographical Encyclopedic Dictionary, ed. V. M. Kotlyakova, M.-2003.
• V. A. Aprodov. Volcanoes, M.-1982.
• Educational atlas of the world, GUGK, M.-1968.
• Reference map "Indonesia", GUGK, M.-1974.
• A. Kondrashov, Directory of necessary knowledge, M.-2001.

Excerpt characterizing the Sunda Islands

- Hello! – she said, smiling cheerfully. - I'm Stella. How do you like my world?..
- Hello Stella! – I answered carefully. – It’s really very beautiful here. Why do you call it yours?
- But because I created it! – the girl chirped even more cheerfully.
I opened my mouth in shock, but I couldn’t say anything... I felt that she was telling the truth, but I couldn’t even imagine how such a thing could be created, especially speaking about it so carelessly and easily...
- Grandma likes it too. – The girl said enough.
And I realized that she was calling “grandmother” the same unusual old woman with whom I had just had such a nice conversation and who, like her no less unusual granddaughter, put me in real shock...
-Are you completely alone here? – I asked.
“When?” the girl became sad.
- Why don’t you call your friends?
“I don’t have them...” the little girl whispered quite sadly.
I didn’t know what to say, afraid to upset this strange, lonely and such a sweet creature even more.
– Do you want to watch something else? – as if waking up from sad thoughts, she asked.
I just nodded in response, deciding to leave the conversation to her, since I didn’t know what else could upset her and didn’t want to try that at all.
“Look, it was yesterday,” Stella said more cheerfully.
And the world turned upside down... The Crystal City disappeared, and instead it burned bright colors some kind of “southern” landscape... My throat caught in surprise.
“And this is you too?” I asked carefully.
She nodded her curly red head proudly. It was very funny to watch her, as the girl was truly and seriously proud of what she managed to create. And who wouldn’t be proud?!. She was a perfect baby who, laughing, in between times, created new incredible worlds, and the boring ones were immediately replaced with others, like gloves... To be honest, there was something to be shocked about. I tried to understand what was going on here?.. Stella was clearly dead, and her essence was communicating with me all this time. But where we were and how she created these “worlds” of hers was still a complete mystery to me.
– Is there something you don’t understand? – the girl was surprised.
– To be honest, yes! – I exclaimed frankly.
– But you can do much more? – the little girl was even more surprised.
“More?..” I asked, dumbfounded.
She nodded, tilting her red head comically to the side.
-Who showed you all this? – I asked carefully, afraid of accidentally offending her.
- Well, of course, grandma. – As if she said something for granted. – At the beginning I was very sad and lonely, and my grandmother felt very sorry for me. So she showed me how it's done.
And then I finally realized that this was truly her world, created only by the power of her thoughts. This girl didn't even realize what a treasure she was! But my grandmother, I think, understood this very well...
As it turned out, Stella died in a car accident several months ago, in which her entire family also died. All that was left was grandma, for whom there was simply no room in the car that time... And who almost went crazy when she learned about her terrible, irreparable misfortune. But, what was most strange, Stella did not end up, as everyone usually did, on the same levels in which her family was. Her body possessed a high essence, which after death went to the highest levels of the Earth. And thus the girl was left completely alone, since her mother, father and older brother were apparently the most ordinary, ordinary people who were not distinguished by any special talents.
– Why don’t you find someone here, where you live now? – I asked again carefully.
– I found... But they are all kind of old and serious... not like you and me. – The girl whispered thoughtfully.
Suddenly she suddenly smiled cheerfully and her sweet little face immediately began to shine like a bright sun.
- Do you want me to show you how to do it?
I just nodded in agreement, very afraid that she would change her mind. But the girl was clearly not going to “change her mind”, on the contrary - she was very happy to have found someone who was almost her same age, and now, if I understood something, she was not going to let me go so easily... This “ perspective" completely suited me, and I prepared to listen carefully about its incredible wonders...
“Everything here is much easier than on Earth,” Stella chirped, very pleased with the attention she received, “you just have to forget about the “level” on which you still live (!) and focus on what you want to see . Try to imagine it very accurately and it will come.
I tried to disconnect from all extraneous thoughts, but it didn’t work. For some reason this has always been difficult for me.
Then, finally, everything disappeared somewhere, and I was left hanging in complete emptiness... A feeling of Complete Peace appeared, so rich in its completeness that it was impossible to experience on Earth... Then the emptiness began to be filled with a fog sparkling with all the colors of the rainbow, which became more and more and became more dense, becoming like a brilliant and very dense ball of stars... Smoothly and slowly this “ball” began to unravel and grow until it looked like a gigantic sparkling spiral, stunning in its beauty, the end of which was “sprayed” by thousands of stars and went wherever - into an invisible distance... I looked dumbfounded at this fabulous unearthly beauty, trying to understand how and where it came from?.. It couldn’t even occur to me that it was really me who created this in my imagination... And also, I I couldn’t get rid of the very strange feeling that THIS was my real home...