South Papua

South Papua is an Indonesian province established on 25 July 2022, covering the southern portion of the island of Papua and corresponding to the customary region of Anim Ha. Its land area of roughly 117,849 square kilometers is comparable to the U.S. state of Pennsylvania or Russia’s Kirov Oblast, and about ninety percent the size of England. The province is the least populous in Indonesia, with an estimated mid-2025 population of 549,650. It shares land borders with Papua New Guinea to the east, the Indonesian provinces of Highland Papua and Central Papua to the north and northwest, and faces the Arafura Sea to the west and south, which forms a maritime boundary with Australia. Merauke serves as the economic center, while the administrative seat is the town of Salor, about 60 kilometers northwest of Merauke town.

The landscape is predominantly lowland, featuring extensive swamps and large rivers such as the Digul and Maro. Indigenous groups including the Asmat, Marind, Muyu, and Korowai inhabit the region, relying on sago and fish as staple foods. The Asmat are known for their wood carving and boating culture. Significant numbers of Javanese migrants have arrived through a government transmigration program aimed at converting swamps into rice paddies. Wasur National Park, a vast wetland, hosts rich biodiversity including the agile wallaby, mound-building termites called musamus, and birds of paradise.

Before European contact, indigenous tribes such as the Asmat, Marind, and Wambon lived in the area, maintaining ancestral traditions. The Marind, also called Malind, lived along rivers in the Merauke region, practicing hunting, gathering, and farming, but were notorious for headhunting, traveling by boat to distant settlements to take heads for preservation and celebration. In the 19th century, European powers divided New Guinea, with the west under Dutch control and the east under British control. In 1902, the Dutch established a military base on the Maro River to secure the border and suppress headhunting, naming it Merauke. A Catholic mission was also founded there. During the colonial period, Javanese laborers were brought to cultivate rice, contributing to the town’s growth, which later became the capital of the South New Guinea province.

In the 1920s, the Dutch explored the Digul River and established a remote detention camp called Tanah Merah at Bove