Schouten Islands
| Schouten Islands | ||
|---|---|---|
_Topography.png) |
||
| Waters | Pacific Ocean | |
| Geographical location | 1 ° 0 ′ S , 136 ° 0 ′ E | |
|
||
| Main island | Biak | |
| Total land area | 2456 km² | |
 |
||
The Schouten Islands (also called Misore Islands or Biak (Kepulauan Schouten) ) are a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean , located on the northern edge of Cenderawasih Bay off the northern coast of New Guinea . Politically, the group now belongs to the Indonesian province of Papua ; until 1970, the islands were part of the Dutch New Guinea colony .
geography
The islands of Biak , Korridu , Numfor , Supiori and numerous smaller islets belong to the archipelago . The larger islands of Korridu and Biak have a combined land area of 2,456 km². The main town of the Schouten Islands is Kota Biak on the south coast of the main island of the same name.
history
The Spaniard Álvaro de Saavedra has probably already discovered the Schouten Islands, but the discovery in 1616 by the Dutch navigators Jacob Le Maire and Willem Cornelisz Schouten , after whom it is also named, is certain .
Due to a misunderstanding, in 1823 the French cartographer Louis Isidore Duperrey had given another group of islands around 800 km southeast of the east coast of Papua New Guinea the name "Schouten"; the latter archipelago was later renamed the Le Maire Islands .
On the island of Biak, Russia and Indonesia planned in 2008 to build a spaceport for satellite air launches using an Antonov An-124 Ruslan transport aircraft ( NATO code name : "Condor").