Kwoor or Koor is a village in

Kwoor Kwoor (also known as Koor) is a District of Tambrauw Regency in Southwest Papua, Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of ov ...

Tambrauw Regency Tambrauw Regency is a regency of Southwest Papua Province, Indonesia. Geography Tambrauw Regency is a new regency located in Bird's head region of Papua Island. Geographically, Tambrauw. Regency is located at 132035' East Longitude (East Longitude ...

Southwest Papua Southwest Papua ( id, Papua Barat Daya) is a province of Indonesia, and is a fraction of Western New Guinea. Despite being named southwest, it is a misnomer and this province is actually located in the northwest edge of Papua. The area that belo ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

on the northern coast of the

Bird's Head Peninsula The Bird's Head Peninsula ( Indonesian: ''Kepala Burung'', nl, Vogelkop) or Doberai Peninsula (''Semenanjung Doberai''), is a large peninsula that makes up the northwest portion of the island of New Guinea, comprising the Indonesian provinces o ...

. As of 1994 it was reported to have a population of 589 people.

History

In the 1950s, the Koor river basin was explored by the Dutch. The area was affected by a very large earthquake doublet in early 2009, with recorded moment magnitudes of 7.6 and 7.4, that had their epicentre near the town of Waibeem to the east of Koor. The earthquakes prompted a widespread tsunami alert in the Pacific region. Koor and this stretch of coast of northwest Papua are noted for their seaturtles, possessing one of the largest colonies of the

leatherback turtle The leatherback sea turtle (''Dermochelys coriacea''), sometimes called the lute turtle or leathery turtle or simply the luth, is the largest of all living turtles and the heaviest non-crocodilian reptile, reaching lengths of up to and weights ...

in the world. A reserve has been proposed, known as the Wewe-Koor Nature Reserve, which would protect this stretch of the coastline. Along with the proposed Jamursba-Medi and Sausapor reserves the three reserves combined would protect 85 km of the coastline.

Geography

Koor is located on the western side of the mouth of the Koor River. The Koor River flows down from the Tosem-Koor Mountains, a rugged massif which has a maximum elevation of around 1700 metres. A sand spit lies at the mouth of the river, to the northeast of the village. Several of the village buildings are located on the sandy beach and others are located further inland under the protection of vegetation. Geologically the village lies on a part of Irian Jaya called the Koor Fault. The villagers speak a language known as the

Abun language Abun, also known as Yimbun, Anden, Manif, or Karon Pantai, is a Papuan language spoken by the Abun people along the northern coast of the Bird's Head Peninsula in Sausapor District, Tambrauw Regency. It is not closely related to any other langu ...

, common to this coastline.

References

External links

Photo of a Dutch expedition from 1954 along the Koor River
Populated places in Southwest Papua Populated places in Tambrauw {{SwPapua-geo-stub Southwest Papua