49 Fun Facts About East Timor

What is the capital and largest city of East Timor?

The Portuguese founded it in 1769 after being pushed out of Kupang by the Dutch. Baucau in the east is the second city.

East Timor shares the island of Timor with which country?

The border was fixed by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 1914, dividing the old Dutch and Portuguese halves.

Which country lies to the south of East Timor across the Timor Sea?

Australian-led INTERFET troops restored order in 1999, and the two countries long wrangled over the oil and gas of the Timor Sea.

East Timor's independence on 20 May 2002 gave it what distinction?

Xanana Gusmão was sworn in as its first president that day; UN membership followed on 27 September 2002.

Which European country ruled East Timor as a colony until 1975?

Portugal held the eastern half of Timor from the 16th century, and Portuguese Timor remained a neglected outpost until Lisbon began decolonising after 1974.

East Timor's two official languages are Tetum and which European language?

It is the only sovereign Asian country where Portuguese is official. English and Indonesian are 'working languages' under the constitution.

The name 'Timor' comes from a Malay word meaning what?

So the country's name means 'East East'. In Tetum it is Timor Lorosa'e, 'where the sun rises'.

Which movement declared East Timor's independence on 28 November 1975 and led the guerrilla resistance?

The Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor held territory as an army until 1978, then fought on from the mountains.

By what name is the 1991 massacre of pro-independence demonstrators in a Dili cemetery known?

The Santa Cruz massacre of 12 November 1991 was filmed by British cameraman Max Stahl; his smuggled footage turned world opinion against the occupation.

Which two East Timorese shared the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize?

Ramos-Horta spent the occupation lobbying abroad and later became president twice; Belo was the Catholic bishop of Dili.

In November 1992 Indonesian troops finally captured the leader of the armed resistance hiding where?

Xanana Gusmão was sentenced to life, then 20 years; he ran the resistance from Jakarta's Cipinang prison and later became the country's first president.

In which year did East Timorese vote for independence in a UN-supervised referendum?

In the UN-run ballot of 30 August 1999, 78.5% voted to reject autonomy within Indonesia; President Habibie had offered the vote after a letter from Australia's John Howard.

Which UN diplomat ran the UNTAET transitional administration of East Timor from 1999 to 2002?

Sérgio Vieira de Mello served as UN Transitional Administrator of East Timor from December 1999 until independence in May 2002; he was killed in the 2003 Baghdad bombing.

What currency does East Timor use?

East Timor adopted the US dollar as its legal tender in 2000 under UN administration and mints only its own centavo coins for small change.

About what proportion of East Timorese are Roman Catholic?

Only 20% were Catholic at the 1975 invasion; Indonesia's requirement that citizens follow a monotheistic faith drove mass conversions.

Along with which other nation is East Timor one of only two predominantly Catholic countries in Asia?

The Philippines, colonised by Spain, and East Timor, colonised by Portugal, are Asia's only two majority-Catholic nations; about four in five Filipinos are Catholic.

Which coastal exclave of East Timor is entirely surrounded by Indonesian territory?

Oecusse, on the north coast of Indonesian West Timor, is cut off from the rest of East Timor; the Portuguese first settled Timor at Lifau there, and it was later made a Special Administrative Region.

What is East Timor's highest mountain?

Mount Tatamailau, also called Ramelau, rises 2,963 metres and is topped by a statue of the Virgin Mary; pilgrims climb it for sunrise.

Which fragrant wood was Timor's great export from the 13th century, drawing European traders?

Sandalwood, prized for incense and carving, drew Chinese and later Portuguese traders to Timor; the 14th-century Majapahit chronicle Nagarakretagama lists the island among the empire's tributaries.

In which year did the colonial power found Dili, beginning effective occupation of the island's east?

Governor António Teles de Meneses moved the Portuguese seat from Lifau to Dili in 1769, after the Dutch had earlier taken Solor and Kupang from Portugal.

What is the WWII guerrilla campaign by Timorese volunteers and Allied troops against Japan known as?

The Battle of Timor saw Australian commandos and Timorese helpers harass the Japanese from 1942 until the last Australians were withdrawn in February 1943; 40,000 to 70,000 Timorese civilians died.

Which 1974 upheaval in the colonial power set East Timor's decolonisation in motion?

The Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974 toppled Portugal's Estado Novo; parties formed in the colony, civil war broke out in August 1975 and the Portuguese governor withdrew offshore.

What minimum did a truth commission put on conflict deaths under Indonesian occupation from 1974 to 1999?

The CAVR truth commission's 2005 Chega! report put the minimum at about 103,000 deaths: 18,600 killings or disappearances and 84,200 excess deaths from hunger and illness, with an upper estimate of 183,000.

East Timor's flag has a red field and a yellow triangle overlaid by a black triangle bearing what?

A five-pointed white star, symbolising peace, sits on the black triangle; the design first flew at the 1975 declaration and was raised again at midnight on 20 May 2002.

The 27-metre Cristo Rei statue overlooking Dili was unveiled in 1996 as a gift from whom?

President Suharto presented the statue in 1996 to mark 20 years since Indonesia's annexation; modelled on Rio's Christ the Redeemer, it is one of the country's main tourist sights.

East Timor's national football team is nicknamed 'Lafaek' after which animal, sacred in local legend?

Legend says the island itself is a crocodile that carried a boy across the sea and turned into land. The team joined FIFA in 2005.

Which crop made up about 90% of East Timor's non-fossil-fuel exports from 2013 to 2019?

Coffee, mostly arabica grown around Ermera, made up around 90% of non-oil exports, yet all such exports totalled only about US$20 million a year, dwarfed by oil and gas revenue.

In the early 2020s, the Timor-Leste Petroleum Fund provided roughly what share of government spending?

The Petroleum Fund financed roughly 80% of state spending in the early 2020s; it held about US$19 billion in 2021, and withdrawals above its estimated sustainable income were routine after 2009.

How many municipalities is East Timor divided into?

East Timor has fourteen municipalities, the newest carved out of an offshore island in 2022; below them sit 442 sucos, or villages, that reflect traditional community identities.

What are the 'uma lulik' at the centre of East Timorese community life?

Uma lulik are sacred houses, ancestral clan shrines built on stilts with high thatched roofs; many were destroyed under Indonesian occupation and later rebuilt.

What are East Timor's traditional handwoven textiles called?

Tais are woven by women on backstrap looms, often with ikat patterning, and are used in ceremonies, gifts and dress; batik and songket are Indonesian and Malay cloths.

Which East Timorese first president, later prime minister, is a published poet nicknamed the 'poet warrior'?

Xanana Gusmão published the poetry collection Mar Meu from Cipinang prison in 1998; villagers' legend held he could turn into a white dog to slip past Indonesian patrols.

In February 2008 which president was critically wounded in an assassination attempt?

Rebel soldiers led by Alfredo Reinado shot José Ramos-Horta at his Dili home on 11 February 2008; Reinado died in the attack, and Prime Minister Gusmão's convoy was fired on separately.

What was East Timor's world-leading fertility rate, in births per woman, around independence in 2002?

The 2003 demographic survey measured 7.8 births per woman, then the world's highest; by the 2016 survey it had fallen to 4.2, leaving a very young population.

East Timor's indigenous languages fall into which two families?

Tetum and Mambai are Austronesian; Bunak, Makasae and Fataluku are Papuan. Up to 30 dialects are spoken.

The 2006 crisis of unrest and factional fighting forced roughly how many people to flee their homes?

About 155,000 people, some 15% of the population, were displaced in 2006 after soldiers sacked over a grievance petition mutinied; an Australian-led force returned to restore order.

Cultural remains at Jerimalai, on the island's eastern tip, show humans lived in East Timor how long ago?

Excavations at Jerimalai cave dated human occupation to about 42,000 years ago; the site also yielded tuna bones and a shell fish hook, the world's oldest evidence of deep-sea fishing.

In traditional Timorese kingdoms, the worldly power of the liurai (king) was balanced by whose spiritual power?

The rai nain was linked to the kingdom's chief sacred house. Many such polities survived intact from first European contact until 1975.

Timor is the largest island of which group within the Malay Archipelago?

Timor is the largest of the Lesser Sunda Islands, the chain running east from Bali; the rougher Banda Sea lies to its north and the calmer Timor Sea to its south, within the Coral Triangle.

East Timor's first feature film, released in 2013, was a period thriller titled what?

Beatriz's War (A Guerra da Beatriz), directed by Luigi Acquisto and Bety Reis, retold The Return of Martin Guerre under Indonesian occupation and was shot on a tiny budget with Australian help.

In which border town did Indonesian forces kill five Australian-based journalists in 1975?

An Australian coroner ruled in 2007 that the 'Balibo Five' were deliberately killed. Journalist Roger East was executed in Dili weeks later.

In which year did the UN end its peacekeeping mission in East Timor?

The UN Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT) closed on 31 December 2012, having handed primary policing back to the national police in March 2011.

East Timor's population at the 2022 census was closest to which figure?

The 2022 census counted about 1.34 million people, most of them living near the coast; the 2014 living-standards survey put roughly 42% below the national poverty line.

Besides ASEAN, East Timor belongs to which organisation of Lusophone countries?

The Community of Portuguese Language Countries also includes Brazil, Angola and Mozambique. East Timor observes the Pacific Islands Forum too.

East Timor first competed at the Olympics under its own name in which year?

Timor-Leste's first Games under its own flag were Athens 2004; at Sydney 2000 four of its athletes had marched as Individual Olympic Athletes under the Olympic flag.

What is East Timor's second-largest city, in the east of the country?

Almost half the country has slopes of at least 40 per cent, and most rivers dry up at least partly in the dry season.

Which island lying north of the mainland forms part of East Timor's territory?

The country's four parts are the mainland, the Oecusse exclave, Atauro and the tiny island of Jaco off the eastern tip.

Which body settled the long-running maritime boundary dispute between East Timor and Australia in 2018?

A conciliation commission administered by the Permanent Court of Arbitration brokered the treaty signed on 6 March 2018, fixing the sea border and sharing Greater Sunrise gas revenue.

East Timor's first conservation area, Nino Konis Santana National Park, protects the country's last remaining what?

Tropical dry forest is the habitat the park, declared in 2007 around the Paitchau Range and Lake Ira Lalaro at the eastern tip, was created to protect; its waters lie in the Coral Triangle.