Simeulue


Simeulue is an island of Indonesia, off the west coast of Sumatra. Its capital is Sinabang.
Simeulue was once a part of West Aceh Regency but was split off in 1999 and became a separate Simeulue Regency.

Demographics

From the ethnic point of view the inhabitants of Simeulue are similar to the people of neighboring Nias Island. Two languages and a number of dialects are spoken on the island: Devayan and Sigulai, which are different from the languages spoken in the north of Sumatra. The majority of the island's population is Muslim.

History

Simeulue was historically known to European mariners as "Hog Island" and served as a landfall for ships seeking ports on the west coast of Sumatra for the pepper trade. It was also known as "Pulo Oo", or "Coconut Island".

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake

Simeulue was close to the epicenter of the 9.3 magnitude 26 December 2004 earthquake.
On 28 March 2005, an 8.7 magnitude earthquake struck with its epicenter just off the south end of the island. During the earthquake, Simeulue rose at least 2 metres on the western coast; this left the flat top of its coral reefs above high tide. On the east coast, the land was submerged, with seawater flooding fields and settlements.

Smong

Although Simeulue Island was only 60 kilometers from the epicenter, while Banda Aceh - the city that was hit the most by the tsunami - was about 250 kilometers, only six residents died while the remaining 70,000 persons were safe, due to local wisdom called 'smong'; this dictated that after an earthquake, if the tide suddenly receded, people should evacuate to higher ground as soon as possible, based on the experience of a major tsunami in 1907.

Tourism

Over the past 10 years Simeulue has become a growingly popular surf destination. The SW facing portion of the island holds multiple world class waves and a handful of surf resorts have popped up in recent years. As surfers have continued to explore throughout Indonesia over the past 40 years since traveling surfers first arrived to Bali, surfing has expanded to more and more of Indonesia's many islands. Simeulue has been one of the last of these islands with quality waves to catch on, and still remains as one of surfing last frontiers.