Salawati is one of the four major islands in the

Raja Ampat Islands Raja Ampat, or the ''Four Kings'', is an archipelago located off the northwest tip of Bird's Head Peninsula on the island of New Guinea, in Indonesia's Southwest Papua province. It comprises over 1,500 small islands, cays, and shoals surrounding ...

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 ...

(formerly West 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 over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

. Its area is 1,623 km². Salawati is separated from

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

to the southeast by the

Sele Strait Sele may refer to: Places Africa * Sele, Burkina Faso, a village in the Ouéleni Department of Burkina Fase. * Sele, Ethiopia, a town in Agbe municipality Asia * Sele, Turkey, a Turkish village in Kailar in Ottoman times * Şələ, Azerbaijan ...

(a.k.a. Galowa Strait, Revenges Strait), and from

Batanta Batanta is one of the four major islands in the Raja Ampat Islands in Southwest Papua province, Indonesia. Its area is 453 km² and its highest point is 1184 m. The Pitt Strait separates it from Salawati, while the Dampier Strait separate ...

to the north by the Pitt Strait (a.k.a. Sagewin Strait).

History

Islam first arrived in the Raja Ampat archipelago in the 15th century due to political and economic contacts with the

Bacan Sultanate The Sultanate of Bacan (كسلطانن باچن) was a state in Maluku Islands, present-day Indonesia that arose with the expansion of the spice trade in late medieval times. It mainly consisted of the Bacan Islands (Bacan, Kasiruta, Mandioli, etc ...

.Wanggai, Toni V. M. (2008)
Rekonstruki sejarah umat Islam di tanna Papua
econstruction of the History of lslam in Papua Syariff Hidayatullah State Islamic University Jakarta (in Indonesian). Retrieved 2022-03-13. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the

Sultanate of Tidore The Sultanate of Tidore (Indonesian: كسلطانن تيدوري, ''Kesultanan Tidore'', sometimes ''Kerajaan Tidore'') was a sultanate in Southeast Asia, centered on Tidore in the Maluku Islands (presently in North Maluku Province). It was also kn ...

had close economic ties with the island.Slama, Martin (2015),
Papua as an Islamic Frontier: Preaching in 'the Jungle' and the Multiplicity of Spatio-Temporal Hierarchisations", ''From 'Stone-Age' to 'Real-Time': Exploring Papuan Temporalities, Mobilities and Religiosities''
ANU Press, pp. 243–270, The name of the island comes from '' Shalawat'' which was spoken by the Sultan of Bacan as he arrived on the island and memorialized as 'Salawati'. During this period, Islam became firmly established and local chiefs had begun adopting Islam. On this island also once stood an Islamic kingdom named Salawati Kingdom which was founded by Fun Malaban.

Administration

Salawati Island (with small offshore islets) comprises five administrative districts (''kecamatan'') of Southwest Papua Province. The northern part of the island is divided into North Salawati (''Salawati Utara''), West Salawati (''Salawati Barat'') and Central Salawati (''Salawati Tengah'') districts of

Raja Ampat Regency Raja Ampat Regency is a regency of Southwest Papua Province of Indonesia. The regency, which was formed based on the Law 26 of 2002, was inaugurated on 12 April 2003, and consists of a number of groups of islands situated off the north-west end of ...

, while the southern part is divided into South Salawati (''Salawati Selatan'') and Central Salawati (''Salawati Tengah'') districts of

Sorong Regency Sorong Regency ( id, Kabupaten Sorong) is a regency of Southwest Papua province of Indonesia. It covers an area of 13,075.28 km2, and had a population of 70,619 at the 2010 Census, and 118,679 at the 2020 Census;Badan Pusat Statistik, Jakarta, ...

. Note that the name of Central Salawati District is held by two different districts in adjacent parts of the two regencies.

Pulau Salawati Utara Nature Reserve

Pulau Salawati Utara Nature Reserve covers much of the northern portion of the island, with an area of 570 km² on the northern portion of the island. It protects part of the island's native lowland rain forest.

References

Raja Ampat Islands {{SwPapua-geo-stub