North Maluku

North Maluku Maluku Utara
Province
Clockwise, from top left : View of Tidore, beach in Halmahera, Weda Bay, Fort Kalamata
Seal
Motto: Marimoi Ngone Futuru (Ternate language: United we are strong)
North Maluku as a part of the Maluku Islands
Coordinates: 0°47′N 127°22′E / 0.783°N 127.367°E / 0.783; 127.367Coordinates: 0°47′N 127°22′E / 0.783°N 127.367°E / 0.783; 127.367
Country	Indonesia
Capital	Sofifi
Largest city	Ternate
Government
• Governor	Abdul Ghani Kasuba (PKS)
• Vice Governor	Muhammad Natsir Thaib
Area
• Total	31,982.50 km2 (12,348.51 sq mi)
Population (2014)
• Total	1,141,561
• Density	36/km2 (92/sq mi)
Demographics
• Religion	Islam (74.28%), Protestantism (24.9%), Roman Catholicism (0.52%)
• Languages	Indonesian, Ternate
Time zone	WIT (UTC+9)
Vehicle registration	DG
HDI	0.659 (Medium)
HDI rank	27th (2015)
Website	www.malutprov.go.id

North Maluku (Indonesian: Maluku Utara) is a province of Indonesia. It covers the northern part of the Maluku Islands. The provincial capital is Sofifi, on Halmahera, and the largest population center is the island of Ternate.

The Maluku Islands was formerly administered as a single province, however, in 1999 it was split into two provinces, with North Maluku being created out of the northern section of the province of Maluku.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth century, the islands of North Maluku were the original "Spice Islands". At the time, the region was the sole source of cloves. The Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, and local sultanates including Ternate and Tidore fought each other for control of the lucrative trade in these spices. Clove trees have since been transported and replanted all around the world, and the demand for cloves from the original spice islands has ceased, greatly reducing North Maluku's international importance.

The population of North Maluku was 1,038,087 at the 2010 Census making it one of the least-populous provinces in Indonesia; at the latest estimate (January 2014) the population had risen to 1,141,561.

The islands of North Maluku are mostly of volcanic origin, with the volcanoes of Dukono on Halmahera, Gamalama on Ternate still active and the whole of Tidore consisting of a large stratovolcano. The rainforests of Halmahera, Morotai, the Obi Islands, the Bacan islands and other islands of North Maluku have been described by the World Wildlife Fund as the "Halmahera rain forests" ecoregion and are home to a number of plant and animal species unique to the islands, which are in the Wallacea transition zone, containing a mixture of species of Asian and Australasian origin. The predominant trees of the forest are Anisoptera thurifera, Hopea gregaria, Hopea iriana, Shorea assamica, Shorea montigena, Shorea selanica, and Vatica rassak.