Biak Islands

The Schouten Islands (Kepulauan Biak, also Biak Islands or Geelvink Islands) are an island group of Papua province, eastern Indonesia in the Cenderawasih Bay (or Geelvink Bay) 50 km off the north-western coast of the island of New Guinea. The group consists of the main islands of Biak, Supiori and Numfor, and numerous smaller islands, mostly covered in rain forest.

The first recorded sighting by Europeans of the Schouten Islands was by the Portuguese navigator Jorge de Menezes in 1526. On the voyage from Malacca to Maluku, via northern Borneo, he was further carried eastward by a storm and strong winds. Jorge de Menezes landed at Biak, where he was forced to winter. Inspired by Malay, Moluccan or local Papuan names, he named the archipelago, and eventually the coasts of western Papua "Islands of Papuas". Biak was thenceforth called in Portuguese maps Ilha de Dom Jorge or Ilha onde invernou Dom Jorge, and Ilha de S. Jorge.

The archipelago was also sighted by Spanish navigator Álvaro de Saavedra who landed on Yapen on June 24, 1528, when trying to return from Tidore to New Spain. The islands were named Islas de Oro (Golden Islands in Spanish). In 1545 they were visited by Íñigo Órtiz de Retes on board the galleon San Juan.

The archipelago was first mapped in the Portuguese charts of Gaspar Viegas (c. 1537), an anonymous map of 1540, and on the maps of João de Lisboa and of Bartolomeu Velho (c. 1560), and by other Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch maps.

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