Nias

Nias (Pulau Nias, Nias language: Tanö Niha) (sometimes called Little Sumatra in English) is an island located off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Nias is also the name of the archipelago (Kepulauan Nias) of which the island is the centre, but also includes the Batu Islands to the south-east and the small Hinako Islands to the west. Nias Island covers an area of (including the Batu Islands to the south and minor offshore islands). It is mostly a lowland area rising to around above sea level. There were 756,338 inhabitants on the island (including the Batu Islands and minor offshore islands) at the 2010 Census; at the 2015 Census this had risen to 798,506 and the 2020 Census resulted in a total of 880,550. The official estimate as at mid 2022 was 902,632. It is located in a chain of islands parallel to the west coast of Sumatra; Simeulue is about northwest, and the Batu Islands (which are administered as part of Nias and have an ethnically similar population) are located about southeast. This chain, which resurfaces in Nusa Tenggara in the mountainous islands of Sumba and Timor, is the forearc of the South Sumatra Basin along the Sunda Trench subduction zone. At Nias the oceanic plate is being obliquely subducted under the Sunda Plate at the rapid rate of a year (Milsom). The first inhabitants of Nias were Australomelanesoid people which can be traced back as early as 10,000 BC. They were later superseded by the Austronesian people which ultimately originate from Taiwan. The name of the island derives from the word used by the islanders to refer to themselves, niha ("human"). In the local language (Li Niha), the island is called Tanö Niha (literally the land of humans). During World War II, Nias was briefly occupied by an unrecognized Nazi state proclaimed by a group of escaped German prisoners calling themselves the Free Republic of Nias. On 26 December 2004 the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake struck a few kilometers north of the island, creating tsunamis as high as . 122 people were killed and hundreds more rendered homeless.