Raja Ampat Islands

Raja Ampat, also called the Four Kings, is an archipelago off the northwest tip of the Bird's Head Peninsula in Southwest Papua province, Indonesia. It comprises more than 1,500 small islands, cays and shoals surrounding the four main islands of Misool, Salawati, Batanta and Waigeo, plus the smaller island of Kofiau. The archipelago lies within the Coral Triangle, an area of Southeast Asian seas holding the richest marine biodiversity on Earth, and its surrounding waters support thousands of species from cleaner shrimp and pygmy seahorses to whales and whale sharks. Most of the islands form the Raja Ampat Regency, separated from Sorong Regency in 2004, covering about 70,000 square kilometers of land and sea with a 2020 census population of 64,141.