Nusa Tenggara Island

The Nusa Tenggara (lit. Southeast Islands), or Lesser Sunda Islands, are a group of islands in the southern Malay archipelago, north of Australia. Together with the Greater Sunda Islands to the west they make up the Sunda Islands. The islands are part of a volcanic arc, the Sunda Arc, formed by subduction along the Java Trench in the Java Sea.

In the 1950's. Minister of Education and Culture Moh. Yamin named the Lesser Sunda Islands became Nusa Tenggara Islands, which means "Nusa" (island, islands) located in southeastern Indonesia.

The Lesser Sunda's consist of many islands, mostly the territory of Indonesia. Some of the islands, notably part of Timor, are the territory of the state of East Timor since its independence in 1999. The Indonesian islands now make up the provinces of Bali, West Nusa Tenggara (Nusa Tenggara Barat) and East Nusa Tenggara (Nusa Tenggara Timur).

These islands are home to unique species including seventeen endemic birds (of the 273 birds found on the islands). The endemic mammals are the endangered Flores Shrew (Suncus mertensi), the vulnerable Komodo Rat (Komodomys rintjanus), and Lombok Flying Fox (Pteropus lombocensis), Sunda Long-eared Bat (Nyctophilus heran) while the carnivorous Komodo dragon, which at three metres long and ninety kilograms in weight is the world's largest lizard, is found on Komodo, Rincah, Gili Motang, and the coast of northwestern Flores.

Activities popular with tourists include surfing at Kuta on Lombok, hiking on Flores and Lombok, and snorkeling or diving off the Gili Islands and Labuanbajo on Flores. Urban areas in this ecoregion (which does not include Bali, Timor or Sumba) include: on Lombok the island capital Mataram and the nearby beach resort of Senggigi; on Sumbawa the port and main town of the east coast, Bima and Sumbawa Besar in the west; and the ports of Maumere (the largest town on the island), Larantuka and Ende on Flores. Lombok and Sumbawa have surfaced roads, but the other large island Flores is too mountainous for easy road transport. The main entry point to the Lesser Sunda islands is Bali and there are smaller airports at Maumere and Mataram while transport between the islands is mainly by boat. [Wikipedia]