Belitung
Belitung Belitung is an island on the east coast of Sumatra, Indonesia in the Java Sea. The island is known for its pepper and for its tin. It was in the possession of the British from 1812 until the British ceded control of the island to the Dutch in the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824. Its main town is Tanjung Pandan. The population is centered in several small towns, populated by approximately 262,000 inhabitants. The largest are Tanjung Pandan in the west and Manggar in the east, which are the respective capitals of the two Regencies into which the island is administratively divided. While ethnic Malays people make up the largest percentage, Belitung has large populations of Bugis, Sundanese, and ethnic Chinese people who formerly worked for the Dutch, mining tin. There are also sizeable populations of Balinese and Maduranese who were settled there in the Suharto era transmigration. Belitung is a source of tin, clay, iron ore and silica sands. The Dutch mining company NV Billiton M...