Bireuën Regency ( id, Kabupaten Bireuen) is a
regency
A regent (from Latin : ruling, governing) is a person appointed to govern a state '' pro tempore'' (Latin: 'for the time being') because the monarch is a minor, absent, incapacitated or unable to discharge the powers and duties of the monarchy ...
of
Aceh, the westernmost province of
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 ...
. It is located on the island of
Sumatra. The capital is
Bireuën Bireuën or Bireun is an Indonesian town, the seat of the Bireuën Regency government in the Aceh Special Territory of Sumatra. Bireuen is located at . The town (officially called Kota Juang District) had a population of 44,604 at the 2010 Census ...
, 105 miles east of the provincial capital,
Banda Aceh. The regency covers an area of 1,798.25 square kilometres and had a population of 340,271 people according to the 2000 Census; at the 2010 Census it had a population of 389,288, which had risen to 436,418 at the 2020 Census. It is bordered by the
Strait of Malacca
The Strait of Malacca is a narrow stretch of water, 500 mi (800 km) long and from 40 to 155 mi (65–250 km) wide, between the Malay Peninsula (Peninsular Malaysia) to the northeast and the Indonesian island of Sumatra to the southwest, connec ...
on the northeast coastline. Bireuen has been affected by the clashes between the
Free Aceh Movement
The Free Aceh Movement ( id, Gerakan Aceh Merdeka, GAM; ace, Geurakan Acèh Meurdèka / Gěrakan Aceh Měrdeka) was a separatist group seeking independence for the Aceh region of Sumatra, Indonesia. GAM fought against Indonesian government f ...
(GAM) and the government.
The regency's name, however, is commonly spelled without the
diaeresis on the letter Ë: ''Kabupaten Bireuen'' (in
Acehnese, Ë represents a
schwa () in diphthongs). It was affected by the
Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami on 26 December 2004.
Administrative districts
The regency is divided administratively into seventeen
districts (''kecamatan''), tabulated below with their areas and their populations at the 2010 Census and the 2020 Census.
[Badan Pusat Statistik, Jakarta, 2021.] The table also includes the locations of the district administrative centres, and the number of villages (rural ''desa'' and urban ''kelurahan'') in each district.
References
Regencies of Aceh
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