Flores Details, Meaning Flores Article and Explanation Guide

Flores Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description

Flores (Portuguese for "flowers") is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, an island arc extending east from the Java island of Indonesia. Flores is located east of Sumbawa and Komodo and west of Lomblen and the Alor archipelago. To the southeast is Timor. To the south, across the Sumba strait, is Sumba and to the north, beyond the Flores Sea, is Sulawesi.

Table of contents

1 Administration
2 Flora and fauna
3 Culture
4 Tourism
5 External References
6 Disambiguation

Administration

Flores is part of the East Nusa Tenggara province. The island is split into five regencies (local government districts); from west to east these are: Manggarai, Ngada, Ende, Sikka and Flores Timur.

Flora and fauna

The west coast of Flores is one of the few places, aside from the island of Komodo itself, where the Komodo dragon can be found in the wild.

In September 2003, at Liang Bua cave in western Flores, paleontologists [1] discovered a heretofore unknown hominid species fossils. The "Floresians" (Homo floresiensis) appear to be a miniaturized version of Homo erectus standing about 3.5 feet tall. They are known to have existed until 18,000 years ago. The discovery has been published in the October 2004 issue of Nature magazine.

Culture

There are many languages spoken on the island of Flores, all of them belonging to the Austronesian family. In the centre of the island in the districts of Ngada and Ende there is what is variously called the Central Flores Dialect Chain or the Central Flores Linkage. Within this area there are slight linguistic differences in almost every village. At least six separate languages are identifiable. These are from west to east: Ngadha, Nage, Keo, Ende, Lio and Palu'e, which is spoken on the island with the same name of the north coast of Flores. Locals would probably also add So'a and Bajawa to this list, which anthropologists have labeled dialects of Ngadha.

Tourism

The most famous tourist attraction in Flores is Kelimutu; three coloured lakes in the district of Ende. These coloured lakes change colours on a regular basis. The latest colours (mid 2003) were said to be turquoise, green and red. The red lake has only recently changed from being black.

There is good snorkelling and diving on several locations along the north coast of Flores, most notably Maumere and Riung. However, due to the destructive practice of local fishermen using bombs to fish, and locals selling shells to tourists, the reefs are slowly being destroyed.

External References

Flores Man special at Nature.com

Disambiguation

Flores is also:

The capital of Guatemala's Petén department; see Flores, Guatemala.
The name of an island in the Azores Portuguese archipelago; see Flores Island, Portugal.
The name of an island off the west coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada; see Flores Island, British Columbia.
A department in Uruguay; see Flores, Uruguay.

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