FLORES

departamento, south-central Uruguay. The rolling hills of the territory culminate in the eastwest-trending Grande Inferior Range (Cuchilla Grande Inferior) and are drained by the Yi River and the Arroyo (stream) Chapicuy Grande. Economic activity centres around livestock raising and agriculture. Sheep ranching is widespread, and wool is a leading product of the department; wheat, corn (maize), linseed, oats, and fruits are cultivated. Flores is traversed south-north by the highway linking Montevideo and Paysand. A branch railroad from Durazno leads to Trinidad, the capital. Area 1,986 square miles (5,144 square km). Pop. (1975) 24,745; (1985) 24,739. one of the Lesser Sunda Islands in Nusa Tenggara Timur propinsi (East Nusa Tenggara province), Indonesia. The last major island in the chain, which extends eastward from Java, it is long and narrow, 5,500 sq mi (14,250 sq km) in area, and has numerous inlets and bays. The island was named after the Portuguese name for the island's eastern cape, Capo de Flores (Cape of Flowers), after the flamboyants (Poinciana regia) found in profusion there. It is very mountainous, especially in the west, where Poco (peak) Mandasawu reaches 7,900 ft (2,400 m). Several active volcanoes are in the centre and east. Near Ende, historically the main city and once a mission centre, is Mt. Kelimutu, the mountain of the three coloured lakes. In May 1974 a volcanic eruption on nearby Mt. Iya caused one of the lakesthe blue-white oneto change to a reddish colour, similar to the other two. The island's interior has been little explored. The rivers are unnavigable. Most of the vegetation consists of either tropical deciduous forest or savanna, and the western end was formerly a haunt of a giant lizard. The indigenous people are mainly mixed MalayPapuan, more Malay in the west, more Papuan elsewhere, making the island a transitional area. Coastal settlers reflect immigration from many areas: there are Bimanese, Sumbanese, Sumbawanese, Buginese, Makasarese, Solorese, Minangkabau, and Javanese-Chinese at different sites on the coast of Flores. Although there are Muslims, primarily in coastal areas around Manggarai and Ende, and Christians, descendants of people converted by the Portuguese in the 16th century, the majority of the population still practice traditional animist religions. In the west, houses are built on terraces, often on piles; neat and regular in arrangement and surrounded by a bamboo hedge, they are divided into separate rooms for different families, with a sleeping passage for unmarried men and strangers. In the east, houses are smaller and inhabited by only one family, while in Ende they are square, roomy, and well built. Land generally is owned communally by the tribe, and the headman has great power. Agriculture is mainly by shifting cultivation; sticks are used to turn over the soil. The chief food crop is corn (maize); there is commercial production of coconuts in coastal regions and of coffee in the hills. Frequent burning for field plots and for hunting, together with the semi-arid climate, account for the small areaonly 3 percentof genuine forest, the remainder being scrub and savanna. About 5 percent of Flores is in temporary fields, while less than 1 percent is in permanent wet rice fields. Most inhabitants are chronically underfed. Flores was once tributary to the princes of Celebes (Sulawesi); though their power was broken by the Dutch in 1667, the latter did not firmly establish civil government on the island until 1909. A fair-weather road (still more heavily utilized by horsedrawn carts than by motor vehicles) was completed in 1926 and traverses the island in a westeast direction; there is airline service to Ende on the southern coast and to Maumere on the northern coast. Pop. (1980), including Adonara, Lomblen, and other smaller adjacent islands, 1,249,052. capital, Petn department, northern Guatemala, built on San Andrs island in the southern part of Lake Petn Itz, only 449 ft (137 m) above sea level. Once capital of the Itz Indians (Mayas who successfully resisted Spanish attempts to conquer them until 1697), Flores is a major trade centre for the Petn region. Chicle, timber, rubber, sugarcane, and cacao are the principal products of the hinterland. Access to the town was very difficult until the opening of an airport on the mainland and the building of a causeway for road traffic. Roads lead from Flores across Petn north and northwest to Mexico, east to Belize, and south to the Guatemalan highlands. It is the point of departure for expeditions to the many Mayan sites in the department. Pop. (1981 prelim.) mun., 13,376.