Flores, or Pulau Flores, is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, a group of islands in the eastern half of Indonesia. The population was 1,931,000 in the 2010 census and the largest town is Maumere. The name Flores is derived from the Portuguese for "flowers".
Flores is located east of Sumbawa and Komodo islands and west of Lembata island and the Alor Archipelago. To the southeast is Timor. To the south, across the Sumba Strait, is Sumba island and to the north, beyond the Flores Sea, is Sulawesi.
Among all islands containing Indonesian territory, Flores is the 10th most populous after Java, Sumatra, Borneo (Kalimantan), Sulawesi, New Guinea, Bali, Madura, Lombok, and Timor, and also the 10th biggest island of Indonesia.
Portugal colonized Flores beginning in 1511, and controlled most of the island until surrendering their last colony to the Netherlands in 1854. Flores was a province of the Dutch East Indies 1854-1942, occupied by Japanese forces 1942-1945. After the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II, Flores became part of the independent Indonesia, recognized in 1949.
Flores in State of Jefferson[]
Flores in Indonesia was home to the ethnic group known as the "hobbits". Due to the island's Portuguese history, a large part of its population were Catholics. These benefited from General-President Suharto's acts of religious toleration in the late 1960s and 1970s.[1]
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