Banda Neira
island in Central Maluku Regency, Maluku Province, Indonesia
Banda Neira (or Pulau Neira) is an island in the Banda Islands, Indonesia. It is administered as part of the administrative Banda Islands District (Kecamatan Kepulauan Banda) within the Central Maluku Regency in the province of Maluku. On its south end is the main town of the same name, which is the largest town in the archipelago with around 7,000 inhabitants.
Geography
The island has a length of about 3.3 kilometres (2.1 mi) and a width of 1.3 kilometres (0.81 mi), with Mount Papenberg as the highest elevation at 250 metres (820 ft). It is located approximately 160 kilometres (99 mi) south of the island of Seram. The island is at the center of the Banda Islands group, with the neighbouring island of Banda Api (essentially the cone of the volcanic Gunung Api) situated around 100 metres west, and Banda Besar (also called Lonthoir, formerly Lontar) being around 1.5 km to the south and east. Banda Api and Banda Neira form the centre and Lonthoir forms most of the surviving rim of a submerged caldera with a diameter of around seven kilometers.
History
Nutmeg is grown on the island and trade brought the inhabitants great wealth in the premodern period. Until the early 17th century, the Banda Islands were ruled by local magnates called the Orang Kaya. The Portuguese first sailed to the Banda Islands in 1512, a year after Afonso de Albuquerque had conquered Malacca, which at the time was the hub of Asian trade.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Banda Neira” as island in Central Maluku Regency, Maluku Province, Indonesia. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as island in Central Maluku Regency, Maluku Province, Indonesia. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2882109. Authority coordinates are -4.518, 129.903. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1512.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Banda Neira”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Banda Neira primary sources, Banda Neira archive and Banda research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Banda Neira” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.