Timor-Leste in the context of "Southeast Asia"

Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian and Pacific oceans. Comprising over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guinea, Indonesia is the world's largest archipelagic state and the 14th-largest country by area, at 1,904,569 square kilometres (735,358 square miles). With over 280 million people, Indonesia is the world's fourth-most-populous country and the most populous Muslim-majority country. Java, the world's most populous island, is home to more than half of the country's population.

Indonesia operates as a presidential republic with an elected legislature and consists of 38 provinces, nine of which have special autonomous status. Jakarta, the largest city, is the world's second-most-populous urban area. Indonesia shares land borders with Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, and East Malaysia, as well as maritime borders with Singapore, Peninsular Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Australia, Palau, and India. Despite its large population and densely populated regions, Indonesia has vast areas of wilderness that support one of the world's highest levels of biodiversity.

Malay (UK: /məˈleɪ/ mə-LAY, US: /ˈmeɪleɪ/ MAY-lay; endonym: Bahasa Melayu, Jawi script: بهاس ملايو) is an Austronesian language spoken primarily by Malays in several islands of Maritime Southeast Asia and the Malay Peninsula on mainland Asia. The language is an official language of Brunei, Malaysia, and Singapore. Indonesian, a standardized variety of Malay, is the official language of Indonesia and one of the working languages of Timor-Leste. Malay is also spoken as a regional language of ethnic Malays in Indonesia, southeast Philippines and the southern part of Thailand. Altogether, it is spoken by 60 million people across Maritime Southeast Asia.

The language is pluricentric and a macrolanguage, i.e., a group of mutually intelligible speech varieties, or dialect continuum, that have no traditional name in common, and which may be considered distinct languages by their speakers. Several varieties of it are standardized as the national language (bahasa kebangsaan or bahasa nasional) of several nation states with various official names: in Malaysia, it is designated as either Bahasa Melayu ("Malay language") or in some instances, Bahasa Malaysia ("Malaysian language"); in Singapore and Brunei, it is called Bahasa Melayu ("Malay language") where it in the latter country refers to a formal standard variety set apart from its own vernacular dialect; in Indonesia, an autonomous normative variety called Bahasa Indonesia ("Indonesian language") is designated the bahasa persatuan/pemersatu ("unifying language" or lingua franca) whereas the term "Malay" (bahasa Melayu) refers to vernacular varieties of Malay indigenous to areas of Central to Southern Sumatra and West Kalimantan as the ethnic languages of Malay in Indonesia.

The Community of Portuguese Language Countries (Portuguese: Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa; abbr. : CPLP), also known as the Lusophone Commonwealth or Lusophone Community (Portuguese: Comunidade Lusófona), is an international organization and political association of Lusophone nations across four continents, where Portuguese is an official language. The CPLP operates as a privileged, multilateral forum for the mutual cooperation of the governments, economies, non-governmental organizations, and peoples of the Lusofonia. The CPLP consists of 9 member states and 34 associate observers, located in Africa, América, Asia, Europe and Oceania, totalling 39 countries and 4 organizations.

The CPLP was founded in 1996, in Lisbon, by Angola, Brazil, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, and São Tomé and Príncipe, nearly two decades after the beginning of the decolonization of the Portuguese Empire. Following the independence of East Timor in 2002 and the application by Equatorial Guinea in 2014, both of those countries became members of the CPLP. Galicia (an autonomous community of Spain), Macau (a special administrative region of China), and Uruguay are formally interested in full membership and another 17 countries across the world are formally interested in associate observer status.

Timor (Indonesian: Pulau Timor; Portuguese: Ilha de Timor; Tetum: Illa Timór) is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is divided between the sovereign states of Timor-Leste in the eastern part and Indonesia in the western part. The Indonesian part, known as West Timor, constitutes part of the province of East Nusa Tenggara. Within West Timor lies an exclave of Timor-Leste called Oecusse District. The island covers an area of 30,777 square kilometres (11,883 square miles). The name is a variant of timur, Malay for "east"; it is so called because it lies at the eastern end of the Lesser Sunda Islands. Mainland Australia is less than 500 km away, separated by the Timor Sea.

Oecusse, also known as Oecusse-Ambeno (Portuguese: Oé-Cusse Ambeno; Tetum: Oecussi Ambeno) and formerly just Ambeno, is an exclave, municipality (formerly a district) and the only Special Administrative Region (SAR) of Timor-Leste.

Located on the north coast of the western portion of Timor, Oecusse is separated from the rest of Timor-Leste by West Timor, Indonesia, which is part of the province of East Nusa Tenggara. West Timor surrounds Oecusse on all sides except the north, where the exclave faces the Savu Sea.

Atauro (Portuguese: Ilha de Ataúro, Tetum: Illa Ataúru, Indonesian: Pulau Atauro), also known as Kambing Island (Indonesian: Pulau Kambing), is an island and municipality (Portuguese: Município Ataúro, Tetum: Munisípiu Atauro or Ata'uro) of Timor-Leste. Atauro is a small oceanic island situated north of Dili, on the extinct Wetar segment of the volcanic Inner Banda Arc, between the Indonesian islands of Alor and Wetar. The nearest island is the Indonesian island of Liran, 13.0 km (8.1 mi) to the northeast. At the 2015 census, it had 9,274 inhabitants.

Atauro was one of the administrative posts (formerly subdistricts) of Dili Municipality until it became a separate municipality with effect from 1 January 2022.

Jaco Island (Portuguese: Ilha de Jaco, Tetum: Illa Jako, Fataluku: Totina or Tontina) is an uninhabited island in Timor-Leste, a country occupying the eastern end of the island of Timor in the Lesser Sunda Islands in Southeast Asia. It lies off the eastern tip with Cape Cutcha of the island of Timor (Aldeia Pitileti, Suco Tutuala, administrative post Tutuala, municipality Lautém).

The Timor Sea (Indonesian: Laut Timor, Portuguese: Mar de Timor, Tetum: Tasi Mane or Tasi Timór) is a relatively shallow sea in the Indian Ocean bounded to the north by the island of Timor with Timor-Leste to the north, Indonesia to the northwest, Arafura Sea to the east, and to the south by Australia. The Sunda Trench marks the deepest point of the Timor Sea with a depth of more than 3300 metres, separating the continents of Oceania in the southeast and Asia to the northwest and north. The Timor sea is prone to earthquakes and tsunamis north of the Sunda Trench, due to its location on the Ring of Fire as well as volcanic activity and can experience major cyclones, due to the proximity from the Equator.

The sea contains a number of reefs, uninhabited islands and significant hydrocarbon reserves. International disputes emerged after the reserves were discovered resulting in the signing of the Timor Sea Treaty.