Muntok () or, more commonly, Mentok is a town in the Indonesian province of Bangka-Belitung on the island of Sumatra. The capital of West Bangka Regency (''Bangka Barat''), it is the site of the biggest tin smelter on the world. Mentok refers to ''the tip of'' the island.

History

Mentok was founded at 1732 by Encek Wan Akub as order of Sultan Palembang Darussalam Sri Susuhan Mahmud Badaruddin I, beginning as a small village consisting of 7 wooden houses for the Royal family of Encek Wan Abdul Jabbar, father-in-law of sultan Badaruddin I of Palembang Darussalam who was married his daughter Zamnah for his 2nd wife from Siantan

Natuna ''(Sacred Ocean, Fortune Land) , image_map = , pushpin_map = Indonesia Riau Islands#Indonesia Sumatra#Indonesia#South China Sea , pushpin_map_caption = Location in Riau Islands##Location in Sumatra##Location in I ...

. Encek Wan Akub discovered a large amount of[tin ore at ''Ulim river'', south Bangka Island on a voyage of discovery with his secret task force and reported it to sultan Badaruddin I of Palembang Darussalam. By approval of sultan Badaruddin I of Palembang Darussalam, Encek Wan Akub ordered his nephew Wan Serin to go to seek tin miners in Johor, Siam and Champa, Campa and start tin mining on Bangka Island. From that time Muntok become an exporter of tin ingots and was filled by merchant ships from many countries including the Dutch East India Company. In 1812 the British

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Sou ...

captured Muntok, renamed it Minto (after

Lord Minto Earl of Minto, in the County of Roxburgh, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1813 for Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 1st Baron Minto. The current earl is Gilbert Timothy George Lariston Elliot-Murray-Kynynm ...

, then Governor-General of India),http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Captain+Burn+and+associates:+British+intelligence-gathering,+trade,...-a0134382052 Captain Burn and associates... and used it as their headquarters in Fort Nugent of Tandjoeng Kaleang to attack Palembang Darussalam for monopoly of the tin trade. After the

Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 (also known as the Convention of London; nl, Verdrag van Londen) was signed by the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in London on 13 August 1814. The treaty restored most of the territories in Java that ...

in 1816 the British left Bangka Island and Mentok to the Dutch. In 1913 the Dutch Indies Government moved the capital of the Bangka-Belitung Residency from Mentok to Pangkal Pinang.

Demographics

The majority of the people in Mentok are Malay and

Hakka Chinese Hakka (, , ) forms a language group of varieties of Chinese, spoken natively by the Hakka people throughout Southern China and Taiwan and throughout the diaspora areas of East Asia, Southeast Asia and in overseas Chinese communities aroun ...

. The Malay are

moslem Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

, the majority of Chinese are

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

and

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

, and there is a small population of Arabian moslems.

Economy

Mentok is a tin smelter town and many people work in the smelter. Other people are government employees, and there are also fishermen, farmers, and tin miners. Mentok is 3 hours from

Palembang Palembang () is the capital city of the Indonesian province of South Sumatra. The city proper covers on both banks of the Musi River on the eastern lowland of southern Sumatra. It had a population of 1,668,848 at the 2020 Census. Palembang ...

by ferry through the

Port of Tanjung Kalian The Port of Tanjung Kalian is a seaport located in the town of Muntok, in West Bangka Regency of the Bangka Belitung Islands, Indonesia. It serves as both a cargo port and a passenger ferry port, connecting the island of Bangka to Sumatra throu ...

and 2 hours by paved road from Pangkal Pinang.

References

External links

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Old town around Black-nest Swiftlet tower
*
Historic town in West Bangka
Populated places in the Bangka Belitung Islands Regency seats of the Bangka Belitung Islands Districts of the Bangka Belitung Islands {{BangkaBelitung-geo-stub