Bird's Head Peninsula


The Bird's Head Peninsula or Doberai Peninsula is a large peninsula that makes up the northwest portion of the island of New Guinea and the major part of the Province of West Papua, Indonesia. The other end is called the Bird's Tail Peninsula.

Location and geography

The Bird's Head Peninsula forms the northwestern end of the island of New Guinea. To the east is Cenderawasih Bay and to the south Bintuni Bay.
To the west, across the Dampier Strait is Waigeo island of Raja Ampat, and Batanta island lies just off the northwest tip. The peninsula south is Bomberai Peninsula.
The peninsula is around 200 by 300 kilometers, and is bio-geographically diverse, containing coastal plains to the south. The Arfak Mountains are a 2900-meter-high mountain range that are found in the east. Slightly shorter than the Arfak Mountains, the Tamrau Mountains are found in the north. Bon Irau is the highest mountain in the Tamrau Mountains, at. The highest mountain on the Bird's Head Peninsula is Mount Arfak. It is high and is located 21 miles southwest of Manokwari. Both of the mountain ranges have a diverse mix of sandstone, limestone, and volcanic rock. A large basin called the Kebar Valley divides the two mountain ranges apart.

Flora and fauna

The peninsula is part of three ecoregions. The lowlands and foothills are in the Vogelkop-Aru lowland rain forests ecoregion. The New Guinea mangroves ecoregion includes coastal mangrove forests. The mountains of the peninsula above 1000 meters elevation constitute the Vogelkop montane rain forests ecoregion. The montane rain forests include an area of more than 22,000 km2. Over 50% of the montane forests are located within protected areas. There are over 300 bird species on the peninsula, of which at least 20 are unique to the ecoregion, and some live only in very restricted areas. These include the grey-banded munia, Vogelkop bowerbird, and the king bird-of-paradise.
Road construction, illegal logging, commercial agricultural expansion and ranching potentially threaten the integrity of the ecoregion. The south-eastern coast of the Bird's Head Peninsula forms part of the Teluk Cenderawasih National Park.
is one of over 300 bird species on the peninsula.

Culture

Archaeological findings indicate that local settlement dates back at least 26,000 years BP. Today, most people live in villages along the coast, with small concentrations inland. Villagers practise subsistence farming by shifting cultivation of copra, rice, corn and peanuts, as well as hunting. There are more than 80 villages scattered around the peninsula. There are about 18 main settlements that are the principal town of one of the five regencies found on the peninsula. These cities include Bintuni, Teminabuan, Sorong, Aimas, and Manokwari. Although, the largest settlements are the city of Sorong on the west coast and Manokwari on the east coast. Manokwari is the largest city with as of 2010 a population of 135,000 and a metropolitan area of 155,000. The city of Sorong has a population of 125,000 and a metropolitan area of 170,000. This city also has the largest metropolitan area.

Languages

is the local lingua franca spoken in the Bird's Head Peninsula. The official language is Indonesian.
The Austronesian languages spoken on the Bird's Head Peninsula mostly belong to the South Halmahera–West New Guinea group.
There are various non-Austronesian Papuan languages native to the peninsula, which are classified as South Bird's Head languages, East Bird's Head languages, West Bird's Head, or language isolates.
Papuan language families:
Language isolates: