SUMBAWA (Dutch SOEMBAWA), one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, Dutch East Indies, between Lombok and Flores, and separated from the former by Alas Strait and from the latter by Sapeh Strait and the island of Komodo. Sumbawa with neigh bouring islands, has an area of 5,24o sq.m. From 3o to ioo m. north of Sumbawa there are the Tenga and Sabalana Islands, small low banks, surrounded by reefs. Mountain chains traverse the centre of each of the peninsulas. There are only a few stretches of alluvial land along the coast : off the southern shore great depths of water are soon reached in the Indian Ocean. The mountains, some volcanic, are highest in the north. Mt. 'Tamboro is still 9,042 ft. high, though it was very severely damaged in the eruption of 1815. No other volcanoes appear to be active. The average annual rainfall (Bima), is 93 in. Agriculture is carried on, rice being raised on sawahs and ladangs, whilst maize, cotton, coffee, tobacco, coconuts, onions, and other vegetables, and fruit, are grown. Horse and cattle breeding are important industries. The forests yield teak and dye-woods, sapan wood the chief.
The pop. (193o) of Sumbawa is 315,512. The natives of the western peninsula (Sumbawa) are of Malayan stock and allied to the Sassaks of Lombok, and those of the eastern peninsula (Bima, Sanggar and Dompo), are Malayo-Papuan.
Sumbawa is part of the residency of Timor and dependencies, and is governed by an assistant resident, who resides at Bima.
Vessels of the Royal Packet Navigation Company call at Bima, Sumbawa, and Taliwang, affording regular communication with Macassar, the other Sunda Islands, and Java ports. Sumbawa consisted originally of six States, all owing allegiance to either Gowa or Macassar in Celebes—Bima, Dompo, Sanggar, Tambora, Papikat and Sumbawa: of ter a rebellion in Tambora in 1815 that State and Papikat ceased to exist. In 17o1 the Dutch arbi trated between Sumbawa and other States in the island engaged in civil war, and in 1765 the Dutch made a separate agreement with Sumbawa, revised in 1875 and again in 1905, under which it has a certain measure of self-government. A contract made with Bima in 1857 and again in 1886, on the lines of that made with Sumbawa, was revised in 1905. It allows the State some self governing powers. Sanggar was subject to the sultan of Ternate originally, then to the Sultan of Macassar, and after the Bongay Contract of 1667 it became a fief of the Dutch. A treaty made in 1858, and revised in 1905, defines its right of self-government. Dompo gave up allegiance to Macassar after the Bongay Contract, was a party to the Sumbawa treaty with the Dutch of 1765, and has had its self-governing powers fixed by subsequent treaties.
(E. E. L.)