Lombok Island

Lombok is an island in West Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia. It forms part of the chain of the Lesser Sunda Islands, with the Lombok Strait 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 (1,825 sq mi). The provincial capital and largest city on the island is Mataram



The island has a population of 4,363,756 people (2008), 2,084,364 of these are female and 2,279,392 are male. The population is Sasak, Balinese, Tionghoa-peranakan (Chinese Indonesians), Sumbawa people, Flores people, and Arab Indonesian

Lombok is under the administration of the Governor of the province of West Nusa Tenggara (Nusa Tenggara Barat). The island is divided into four regencies, North Lombok Regency, Central Lombok Regency, East Lombok Regency and West Lombok Regency. The province of West Nusa Teggara is administered from the provincial capital of Mataram in West Lombok

The Lombok Strait lies to the immediate west of the island and this waterway 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 [1], who first remarked upon the distinction between these two major biogeographical regions and how abrupt the boundary was between the two biomes

To the east of Lombok lies the Alas Strait, a narrow body of water separating the island of Lombok from the nearby island of Sumbawa to the east

The island's topography is dominated by the centrally-located stratovolcano Mount Rinjani, which rises to 3,726 m (12,224 ft), making the second highest volcano in Indonesia and the nations third highest mountain. The most recent eruption of Rinjani was in May, 2010 at Gunung Barujari. Ash was reported as rising up to two km into the atmosphere from the Barujari cone in Rinjani's caldera lake of Segara Anak. Lava flowed into the caldera lake, pushing its temperature up and crops on the slopes of Rinjani were damaged by ash fall. The volcano, and its crater lake, 'Segara Anak' (child of the sea), are protected by the Gunung Rinjani National Park established in 1997

The highlands of Lombok are forest clad and mostly undeveloped. The lowlands are highly cultivated. Rice, soybeans, coffee, tobacco, cotton, cinnamon, cacao, cloves, cassava, corn, coconuts, copra, bananas and vanilla are the major crops grown in the fertile soils of the island. The southern part of the island is fertile but dryer especially toward the southern coastline