kingdom · Maritime Southeast Asia

Kingdom of Tambora

1600 CE – 1815 CE (approx.) · capital Tambora

Small kingdom on the slopes of Mount Tambora in Sumbawa, wiped out by the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history.

Origins

Little is known of its origins. Tambora was one of several small realms on Sumbawa, alongside the Bima Sultanate, Dompu, Sanggar and the Sumbawa Sultanate, and from the 17th century it came under Makassarese and then Dutch East India Company influence through treaties with Sumbawan rulers.

Rule and society

Its people grew rice and traded horses, honey, sappanwood and sandalwood. Tambora was ruled by a Muslim raja. Its language, recorded in a short wordlist gathered for Thomas Stamford Raffles, appears unrelated to the Austronesian languages around it and may have been a non-Austronesian isolate.

Decline and legacy

The eruption of Mount Tambora in April 1815 buried the kingdom and neighbouring Pekat under ash and pyroclastic flows, killing nearly all its inhabitants. The ensuing global cooling caused the Year Without a Summer in 1816. Excavations since 2004 have uncovered houses, pottery and remains, earning Tambora the name the Pompeii of the East.

Few sources survive for this state; details are uncertain.

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Cite this page
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Kingdom of Tambora. In The Epoch Institute States Register. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/kingdom-of-tambora
MLA
“Kingdom of Tambora.” The Epoch Institute States Register, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/kingdom-of-tambora. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Kingdom of Tambora.” The Epoch Institute States Register. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/kingdom-of-tambora.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Kingdom of Tambora’, The Epoch Institute States Register. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/kingdom-of-tambora (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random state ↻