West Timor is the
Indonesian portion of the island of
Timor and forms part of the province of
Nusa Tenggara Timur, (NTT or East Nusa Tenggara). West Timor's capital and chief port is
Kupang. The land area of West Timor is 15,850 km².
Oecussi-Ambeno district is a small enclave within West Timor which is politically part of
East Timor. During the colonial period West Timor was known as
Dutch Timor and was a centre of Dutch loyalists during the
Indonesian War of Independence (1945 - 1949). From 1949 to 1975 it was called
Indonesian Timor.
West Timor has a population estimated (officially) in 2005 at 1,953,965 inhabitants. Administratively it comprises four regencies of the province of Nusa Tenggara Timur - Kupang, Timor Tengah Selatan, Timor Tengah Utara and Belu, plus the city of Kupang which has a separate regency-level status. The population is mostly of Austronesian, Papuan or Polynesian extraction, with a tiny ethnic Chinese group.
West Timor has an unemployment rate of 10% with significant underemployment. [1] Per capita income is roughly one-third the national average with most other socio-economic indicators lagging behind the Indonesian average. [2] Most measurable economic activity is centered around the city of Kupang. [3]
There is little linguistic diversity in West Timor. The language of nearly the entire mainland is Uab Meto, though Tetum is spoken in the east, and Amarasi on the southern coast near the capital. A local variety of Malay is spoken in the capital of Kupang, and the official variety, Indonesian, is spoken as the official national language of Indonesia. The nearby islands of Semau and Roti have eight languages closely related to Uab Meto.
