Raja Ampat Islands is a series of four adjacent islands located in the western part of the Bird's Head ( Vogelkoop ) Papua Island . Administratively , this cluster is under Raja Ampat, West Papua province . The islands are now a destination for divers who are interested in the beauty of the underwater scenery . Four islands that are members named by the four biggest islands , namely Pulau Waigeo , Misool Island , Salawati Island and Island Batanta .
In the course of history , the Raja Ampat has long been inhabited by the nobility and implement custom systems Maluku . In this system , a set of human society . Each village is headed by a king . Since its establishment five Muslim sultanate in Maluku , Raja Ampat claims to be part of the Sultanate of Tidore . After the Sultanate Tidore defeat of the Netherlands , the Raja Ampat Islands became part of the Dutch East Indies claims .
The expert team from Conservation International , The Nature Conservancy , and the National Institute of Oceanography (LON ) Indonesian Institute of Sciences ( LIPI ) once rapid assessments in 2001 and 2002. As a result , they note in these waters there are more than 540 kinds of hard corals ( 75 % of the total species in the world ) , more than 1,000 species of reef fish , 700 species of molluscs , and the highest record for gonodactyloid stomatopod crustaceans . It makes 75% of the world's coral species are in Raja Ampat . None of the places with the same area has a number of coral species as much as this .
Visiting these islands is not too difficult although does take time and considerable cost . We can use the airline from Jakarta or Bali to Sorong via Makassar and Ambon and Manado for approximately 6 hours of flight . From Sorong , a fairly large city with a fairly complete facilities . To explore the Raja Ampat there are two choices , take a tour by boat or stay in a resort Phinisi Raja Ampat Dive Lodge . Although most tourists who come to Raja Ampat is currently the divers , in fact the location is attractive also for tourists non divers because it also has sandy beaches and white is very beautiful , a cluster of islands karst nan stunning and the flora and fauna unique endemic like paradise red , bird of paradise Wilson , maleo Waigeo , various parrots and parrot , possum Waigeo , as well as various types of orchids.
