Baucau Municipality
municipality of East Timor
Baucau (Portuguese: Município Baucau, Tetun: Munisípiu Baukau) is a municipality, and was formerly a district, of Timor-Leste, on the northern coast in the eastern part of the country. The capital is also called Baucau (formerly Vila Salazar). The population of the municipality is 111,694 (census 2010) and it has an area of 1,506 km2.
Toponymy
The word Baucau is derived from the word "Akau", which means "pig" in the local Waimoa language.
During the Portuguese colonial era, the name of the district was transformed, first into Macau and finally into Baucau. An alternative name for the Baucau community is Wailia-Wailewa, meaning the "great water spring of Wai Lia". In the Wai Lia area (part of the suco of Bahu), a large spring is located under large trees; it is both an animist and a Christian holy place.
In 1936, the Portuguese colonial authorities renamed what was then the district of Baucau as "São Domingos". However, that name, like other imperial-sounding names adopted in the colony at about that time, did not catch on, and a few years after World War II it was quietly abandoned.
Geography
The borders of the District of Baucau during the colonial era were the same as they are now.
The public source identifies “Baucau Municipality” as municipality of East Timor. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Baucau, Municipality and municipality.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q811132. VIAF identifies the subject as 158627430. The Library of Congress control number is no2004100125. Authority coordinates are -8.583, 126.500. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2010 and 1936.
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This entry incorporates text from “Baucau Municipality” 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.