Ujung Kulon Land

The park's 120,551 hectares are divided into 76214 ha of land and 44,337 ha of surrounding reefs and sea. It can roughly be separated into three areas: - the triangular shaped Ujung Kulon Peninsula, The Gunung Honje Range to the east of the peninsula;s itsthmus and the island of Panaitan to the north west.

The highest points in the park are the 620 metre Gunung Honje, the Gunung Payung Range peaks of up to 500 meters and Panaitan Island's Gunung Raksa at 320 meters. In the central section of the Peninsula is a large region of wilderness known as the Telanca Plateau which reaches 140 metres above sea level, however most consist of low rolling terrain seldom more that 50 metres above sea level.

Surrounding by unusually warm waters, seldom varying from between 29 - 30 degree celcius. The coastline of the park are moulded by the sea around them, battered by the Indian Ocean, the long, sandy beaches of the south coast are backed by dunes, lagoons and forest broken by rocky outcrops - a wild and windswept shoreline.

The west coast's reef-lined shore has cliffs, promontories and towering sea stacks along sand and boulder beaches overhung by forest, creating the most spectacular coastline in the park.

On the north coast, the sheltered tropical straits lap upon beaches of white snds and coral banks with islands, estuaries, swamps and forest lined shores.

Along each coastline is a variety of seascapes which in all their diversity, offer a wide range of absorbing shoreline experiences.

GEOLOGY OF UJUNG KULON

The events that led to the formation of the land we know as Ujung Kulon began about 200 million years ago when what is now the Indian continent broke awy from the super-continent of Gondwanaland. It collided with the Asian continent creating huge ripples across the earth's crust forming the snow-clad Himalayas along with Sumatra's mountain range, Bukit Barisan.

It is believed the the Ujung Kulon Peninsula and the Gunung Honje Range were at that time the southern end of the Bukit Barisan Range as Java and Sumatra were connected by a land-bridge. Then 20.000 to 15.000 years ago, the land bridge collapsed to eventually form the Sunda Straits about 9.500 years ago.

However the period when the Straits was formed is somewhat contradicted by an intriguing account in an early Javanese chronicle The Book of Kings. It states the in the year 416 AD the mountain Kapi (Krakatau) 'burst into pieces and sunk into the deepest of the earth' and the seas flooded the land from Gunung Gede near Bogor to the mountain Raja Basa in southern Sumatra. The chronicle concludes: - 'After the waters subsided the mountain Kapi and the surrounding land became sea and the island of Java was divided into two parts'

It is a currious fact that no sea straits between Sumatra and Java was known before the 1100's by the far-ranging Chinese and Arabian traders and later European explorers.

Beneath the mountains and forest of Ujung Kulon carved by the thousands of centuries of rain, wind and sea, are the foundations of the land - a young mountain system formed over the older strata of the Sunda Shelf. Geologically, the Ujung Kulon Peninsula, Gunung Honje Range and Panaitan Island are all part of this young Tertiary mountain system while the central part of Ujung Kulon is of older limestone formations which have been covered by alluvial deposits in the north and sandstone in the south.

Much of the underlying rocks and early soils of the park are covered by volcanic ash, in places up to 1 metre deep, a legacy from the Krakatau eruptions. The mountain ranges were all formed by the same folding event in the Miocene period creating beneath the forest of the Gunung Honje Range and eastward tilting mountain block.

A reminder of this activity is a geological fault line situated off the Tamanjaya coastline. It bisects the park beneath the isthmus as it passes through the Sunda Straits connecting the volcanic islands of Krakatau to a major tectonic fault line in the south of Indonesia.

Ujung Kulon Climate

Ujung Kulon's tropical maritime climate, somewhat cooler than inland areas of Java, produces an annual rain fall of approximately 3250 mm. Temperatures range between 25-30 C with humidity level generally between 80% and 90%.

April to October are the drier months, particularly between July to October. During these months therw are long periods of fine, calm weather with occasional spells of overcast skies, rain and rougher seas.The wetter season usually begins in November and finishes in March bringing an average of 400 mm of rain permonth. The heaviest rains of December and January are often accompanied by squalls and strong winds, clearing the atmosphere and producing brilliant sunsets and spectcular panoramas.

Ujung Kulon National Park

Introduction | The Land | Plant Life | Wild Life | Marine Life | The People | Attractions