Bima

Bima is a coastal city on the eastern shore of Bima Bay, on the east of the island of Sumbawa in the Indonesian province of West Nusa Tenggara. It is the largest city on Sumbawa, with 155,140 residents at the 2020 census, and it is administered separately from the Bima Regency that surrounds it on the landward side. The people of the city and of eastern Sumbawa speak the Bima language. From 1620 to 1958 the city was the capital of the Bima Sultanate, whose former palace is now the Sultan Salahuddin Museum beside the Sultan Salahuddin mosque, and in 1792 the sultan signed a contract that made Bima a protectorate of the Dutch East India Company. Today it is the main regional and economic hub of eastern Sumbawa, linked by the trans-Sumbawa road to Sape Harbour and Dompu and served by Sultan Muhammad Salahudin Airport. The climate is tropical savanna, with little rain from April to November and heavy rain from December to March.