Editing West Timor (section)

==Geography==
[[File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Een van de moddervulkaantjes van de Potto Nifoemasoe Moetisgebied Timor TMnr 10004364.jpg|left|thumb|Mud volcano in the [[Mount Mutis|Mutis Mountains]] (1937)]]
West Timor is a non-political region that comprises the western half of [[Timor]] island (with the exception of [[Oecusse District|Oecusse district]], which is politically part of the nation of [[Timor-Leste]]) and forms a part of the Indonesian province of [[East Nusa Tenggara]]. Most of West Timor belongs to the Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara with the capital Kupang on the western tip of Timor. The Indonesian western part of the island, with an area of 14,513&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup>,<ref>{{Cite web |title=BPS Provinsi NTT |url=https://ntt.bps.go.id/quickMap.html |access-date=2023-11-02 |website=ntt.bps.go.id}}</ref> is divided into the city of [[Kupang]] (the chief port and largest town in West Timor, and the capital of [[Nusa Tenggara Timur]] province.) and the governmental [[Regency (Indonesia)|regencies]] (kabupaten) of [[Belu Regency|Belu]] (capital: [[Atambua]]), [[Kupang Regency|Kupang]] (including the offshore island of [[Semau]]; capital: Kupang), South Central Timor (capital: [[Soe, Timor|Soe]]) and [[North Central Timor Regency|North Central Timor]] (Timor Tengah Utara; capital: [[Kefamenanu]]). On 14 December 2012, South Belu became the new administrative regency of [[Malaka Regency|Malaka]] (capital: [[Betun, Indonesia|Betun]]).

The area of Oecusse Ambeno on the north coast with 817&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup> belongs to the state of Timor-Leste. The capital of the special administrative region is [[Pante Macassar]].<ref>{{Cite journal |date=2015 |title=Results of the 2015 census |url=https://www.statistics.gov.tl/category/publications/census-publications/2015-census-publications/ |journal=Direcção-Geral de Estatística}}</ref>

West Timor owes its present appearance to an extremely eventful geological past, the special characteristic of which is large differences in altitude within short distances. More than 60% of the surface of West Timor consists of largely rugged low mountain ranges. Numerous rivers and streams draining the mountainous areas and plateaus have carved deep, [[V-shaped valley]]s into the mountainous landscape. The highest point of West Timor is [[Mount Mutis]], at {{convert|2427|m}}.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2016-06-09 |title=Mount Mutis {{!}} Gunung Bagging |url=https://www.gunungbagging.com/mutis/ |access-date=2023-11-02 |language=en-US}}</ref>

West Timor lies between Australia and [[Timor-Leste]] which makes the island a strategic place for Indonesian trade.

=== Climate ===
West Timor is no exception to the general climate of the [[Malay Archipelago|Malay archipelago]]: the western part of the island of Timor has the characteristic monsoon climate. Thus, Timor also shows the familiar picture of Indonesia: the west monsoon in one half of the year, the east monsoon in the other. The west monsoon is a time of heavy, cloudburst rainfall in the months of October to May, the east monsoon a time of extreme dryness during the rest of the year, thus West Timor has large and wide-ranging savannas, and has fairly dry air temperatures, with minimal rainfal In the rainy season. When downpours happen, these rivers briefly become wild, raging torrents of water, which then cause major traffic and communication problems. In the past, these isolated plateaus and mountain landscapes favoured the emergence of politically relatively autonomous territories.<gallery class="center" widths="150">
File:Westtimor Land 4.jpg|link=|Rainy season at [[Soe, Timor|Soe]] (1990)
File:Westtimor Land 1.jpg|link=|Dry season in Fatu Le`u (1991)
File:Pante Macassar Klimadiagramm.png|link=|Climate diagram of East Timor's [[Pante Macassar]] ([[Oecusse|Oe-Cusse Ambeno]] exclave)
</gallery>