Lombok - the sister island
admin January 11th, 2010
Lombok, the sister island to Bali, is located in the West Nusa Tenggara province of Indonesia. It is part of the chain of the Lesser Sunda Islands, with the Lombok Strait and the Wallace line separating it from Bali to the west and the Alas Strait between it and Sumbawa to the east. It is roughly circular, with a “tail” to the southwest, about 70 km across and a total area of about 4,725 km² . The administrative capital and largest city on the island and also where the airport is called Mataram.
History - The Dutch first visited Lombok in 1674 and settled the eastern most part of the island, leaving the western half to be ruled by a Hindu dynasty from Bali. The Sasaks struggled under Balinese rule, and a revolt in 1891 ended in 1894 with the annexation of the entire island to the Netherlands East Indies.
The Lombok Strait marks the passage of the biogeographical division between the fauna of the Indomalayan ecozone and the distinctly different fauna of Australasia that is known as the Wallace Line, for Alfred Russel Wallace, who first remarked upon the distinction between these two major differences.
Geography - The island’s topography is dominated by the centrally-located volcano Mount Rinjani, which rises to 3,726 m, making it the third-highest in Indonesia. The most recent eruption of Mt Rinjani was in June-July, 1994. The volcano, and its sacred crater lake, ‘Segara Anak’ (child of the sea), are protected by a National Park established in 1997.
