Selat Panjang

Selat Panjang (Jawi: سلاتفنجاغ‎; Chinese: 石叻班讓; pinyin: shílèbānràng) is the capital of Kepulauan Meranti Regency, which is part of the province of Riau in Indonesia. The regency is a new regency in Riau province which was established on 19 December 2008 after being separated from Bengkalis Regency. The city is located on Tebing Tinggi Island, which is separated by a narrow channel from Sumatra, and across the Strait of Malacca from Singapore.

The town of Selat Panjang (administratively, the district or kecamatan of Tebing Tinggi) has a dense population of about 66,400 people in mid-2023. The largest ethnic group is Chinese, and almost all of them adhere to Buddhism and Taoism. Around 37% of the population is ethnically Malay. There are also smaller ethnic groups such as Tamils, Minangkabau, and Javanese.

Thus, nowadays many Chinese Indonesians who are originally from Selat Panjang have moved to other regions to make a better living at prominent locations like Singapore, Medan, Pekanbaru, Batam, Bengkalis, and Tanjung Balai Karimun. Nevertheless, during every Chinese New Year, many of them would return to Selat Panjang to celebrate the Chinese New Year with their kin and relatives although they have migrated to other regions or cities for many years.

Bahasa Indonesia is primarily spoken by people in Selatpanjang. Besides that, Riau Malay is used as a lingua franca while the local Chinese population speaks a form of Hokkien language known as Riau Hokkien (廖内福建话). This form of Hokkien is very similar to Singaporean Hokkien and Southern Malaysian Hokkien in terms of accent as well as lexicon. Riau Hokkien is spoken in the middle and southern part of the Indonesian island of Sumatra and is very different from Medan Hokkien which is used in the northern part of the Sumatra island.

Located near to the equator, temperatures vary little during the year, typically with a high of 31 °C (88 °F) and low of 22 °C (72 °F) in each month. Rainfall ranges from 109 millimetres (4.3 in) in July to 289 millimetres (11.4 in) in November, totalling about 2,400 millimetres (94 in) per year. The land is flat. At one time it was entirely covered by peat swamps and dense forest, but it is rapidly being cleared for pulpwood and palm oil plantations. Mudskippers thrive in the tidal flats. Lake Nambus is about 30 minutes by road from the port of Selat Panjang, near Tanjung Village, surrounded by protected forest. During the month of Safar local people swim in the lake.

The town of Selat Panjang is the administrative seat of the Meranti Islands Regency. It used to be one of the cities (Bandar) that were the busiest and most popular trading centres in the Sultanate of Siak. The town has formed a heterogeneous society, especially of the Malays and Chinese because they are the role of inter- formed closely in harmony with cultural activities and trade. All this is inseparable tolerance inter-fraternity. It is this factor which then fosters trade and traffic as well as human goods from China to the archipelago and vice versa.

Selat Panjang and the surrounding area were formerly a territory of the Sultanate of Siak Sri Indrapura which is one of the largest empires in Riau during the reign of Sultan Siak VII of Sultan Sharif Ali Abdul Jalil Assyaidis Syaifuddin Baalawi (who reigned in 1784-1810), usually called Sultan Sharif Ali, gave command to the Commander of Tengku Muda Good Saiyid Thoha to establish the State or the dealer at the Tebing Tinggi Island. In addition to interest in the island as well as Sultan Sharif Ali Abdul Jalil Assyaidis Syaifuddin Baalawi himself had to stop in the area, the main purpose of Sultan Sharif Ali was to gather forces against the kingdom of Sambas (West Kalimantan), which indicated that allied with the Dutch, who had betrayed the agreement faithfully and steal the crown Siak kingdom. Country or Bandar as it will spearhead the third defense after the Bukit Batu and Merbauto confront the invaders and pirates.

Then the fleet under the Command of Commander in Chief Tengku Muda Saiyid Thoha at the beginning of Muharram in 1805 AD Kingdom of Siak accompanied by some authorities, hundreds of soldiers, and Balang upstream toward the island of High Cliff. They arrived at the cliff of Forest Alai (now the Capital District of West Tebingtinggi). Commander immediately stabs Keris and greets Alai. Ground Alai Land did not answer, he scooped up a handful of land, which was hot. He took it off, "According to all the knowledge den, the soil is not good Alai made a country because of land Forest land Alai is a male, could develop into a new country in a period," said the commander in front of a magnifying Siak and his men.