West Timor in the context of "Uab Meto"

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.

The Timoric languages are a group of Austronesian languages (belonging to the Central–Eastern subgroup) spoken on the islands of Timor, neighboring Wetar, and (depending on the classification) Southwest Maluku to the east.

Within the group, the languages with the most speakers are Uab Meto of West Timor, Indonesia and Tetum of East Timor, each with about half a million speakers, though in addition Tetum is an official language and a lingua franca among non-Tetum East Timorese.

Tetum (Tetun [ˈt̪et̪un̪] ; Indonesian: Bahasa Tetun; Portuguese: Tétum [ˈtɛtũ]) is an Austronesian language spoken on the island of Timor. It is one of the official languages of Timor-Leste and it is also spoken in Belu Regency and Malaka Regency, which form the eastern part of Indonesian West Timor adjoining Timor-Leste.

There are two main forms of Tetum as a language:

Savu (Indonesian: Sawu, also known as Sabu, Havu, and Hawu) is the largest of a group of three islands, situated midway between Sumba and Rote, west of Timor, in Indonesia's eastern province, East Nusa Tenggara. Ferries connect the islands to Waingapu on Sumba, Ende on Flores, and Kupang in West Timor. Flying to Savu through Susi Air from Kupang, Ende, and Waingapu is also possible.

The Indonesia–Timor-Leste border is the international border between Timor-Leste and Indonesia. The border consists of two non-contiguous sections totalling 253 km (157 mi) in length, the larger section of which divides the island of Timor in two. The demarcation of the border between Indonesia and Timor-Leste has been fought over by various parties for 350 years. The first attempts to define it precisely were made by the colonial powers of the Netherlands and Portugal with the Treaty of Lisbon in 1859, but it was not until the Permanent Court of Arbitration's award of 25 June 1914 that the final land border between them on the island of Timor was established. It largely coincides with today's border between the state of Timor-Leste (East Timor), which only gained its final independence in 2002, and West Timor, which belongs to Indonesia, but was still disputed on some points until 2019.

East Nusa Tenggara (Indonesian: Nusa Tenggara Timur; NTT; Indonesian pronunciation: [ˌnusa təŋˌɡara ˈtimʊr], lit. 'East Southeast Islands') is the southernmost province of Indonesia. It comprises the eastern portion of the Lesser Sunda Islands, facing the Indian Ocean in the south and the Flores Sea in the north, with a total land area of 47,238.07 km. It consists of more than 500 islands, with the largest ones being Sumba, Flores, and the western part of Timor; the latter shares a land border with the separate nation of East Timor. The province is subdivided into twenty-one regencies and the regency-level city of Kupang, which is the capital and largest city.

Archaeological research shows that Liang Bua cave in East Nusa Tenggara has been inhabited by humans since about 190,000 years ago. The site was home to early humans, including Homo floresiensis, who were found in the cave's archaeological layers.

The Battle of Timor occurred in Portuguese Timor and Dutch Timor during the Second World War. Japanese forces invaded the island on 19 February 1942 and were resisted by a small, under-equipped force of Allied military personnel—known as Sparrow Force—predominantly from Australia, the United Kingdom, and the Dutch East Indies. Following a brief but stout resistance, the Japanese succeeded in forcing the surrender of the bulk of the Allied force after three days of fighting, although several hundred Australian commandos continued to wage an unconventional raiding campaign. They were resupplied by aircraft and vessels, based mostly in Darwin, Australia, about 650 km (400 mi) to the southeast, across the Timor Sea. During the subsequent fighting, the Japanese suffered heavy casualties, but they were eventually able to contain the Australians.

The campaign lasted until 10 February 1943, when the final remaining Australians were evacuated, making them the last Allied land forces to leave Southeast Asia following the Japanese offensives of 1941–1942. As a result, an entire Japanese division was tied up on Timor for more than six months, preventing its deployment elsewhere. Although Portugal was not a combatant, many Timorese and European Portuguese civilians fought with the Allies or provided them with food, shelter and other assistance. Some Timorese continued a resistance campaign following the Australian withdrawal. For this, they paid a heavy price and tens of thousands of Timorese civilians died as a result of the Japanese occupation, which lasted until the end of the war in 1945.