About Sumatra

Sumatra is an Indonesian island in Southeast Asia that is part of the Sunda Islands. Sumatra has a wide range of plant and animal species but has lost almost 50% of its tropical rainforest in the last 35 years [clarification needed]. Many species are now critically endangered, such as the Sumatran ground cuckoo, the Sumatran tiger, the Sumatran elephant, the Sumatran rhinoceros, and the Sumatran orangutan. Deforestation on the island has also resulted in serious seasonal smoke haze over neighboring countries, such as the 2013 Southeast Asian haze causing considerable tensions between Indonesia and affected countries Malaysia and Singapore.

Sumatra was known in ancient times by the Sanskrit names of Swarnadwīpa (“Island of Gold”) and Swarnabhūmi (“Land of Gold”), because of the gold deposits in the island’s highlands.The first mention of the name of Sumatra was in the name of Srivijayan Haji (king) Sumatrabhumi (“King of the land of Sumatra”),who sent an envoy to China in 1017. Arab geographers referred to the island as Lamri (Lamuri, Lambri or Ramni) in the tenth through thirteenth centuries, in reference to a kingdom near modern-day Banda Aceh which was the first landfall for traders. The island is also known by other names namely, Andalas or Percha Island

Late in the 14th century the name Sumatra became popular in reference to the kingdom of Samudra Pasai, a rising power until replaced by the Sultanate of Aceh. Sultan Alauddin Shah of Aceh, in letters addressed to Queen Elizabeth I of England in 1602, referred to himself as “king of Aceh and Samudra”. The word itself is from Sanskrit “Samudra”, meaning “gathering together of waters, sea or ocean”. Marco Polo named the kingdom Samara or Samarcha in the late 13th century, while the 14th century traveller Odoric of Pordenone used Sumoltra for Samudra. Subsequent European writers then used similar forms of the name for the entire island. 

European writers in the 19th century found that the indigenous inhabitants did not have a name for the island.