The island of Celebes reminds me of a broken piece of dried star anise that you might find in your cooking supplies. The west--broken--side is straight except for a knob in the center. To the northeast, east, southeast and south stretch peninsulas.
The topmost one, Minahasa, begins pointing north, then turns east and finally northeast. It is continued by a chain of islands that nearly reach Mindanao in the Philippines(2). Together the north shore and these Singir(3) Islands mark the edge of the deep Celebes Sea.
Below Minahasa is the stubbier central peninsula which drifts northeastward, but if one includes the nearby Banggai and Bonokan Islands the combination takes the truer direction and nearly reaches Sula Island of Molucca(4) Province.
Between the foot of Minahasa and the central peninsula is Tomini Bay. To its east between central Minahasa and the end of the central peninsula is the rest of the Molucca Sea, and the two waters are separated by the Togian Islands.
The southeastern peninsula and its extension in Buton Islands and the Tukangbesi Islands poke out into the Banda Sea, with depths of thousands of meters just beyond land. This peninsula includes the Celebes's longest river, the Sampara, and--at its base--two large lakes.
The fourth peninsula--and historically the most famed--aims at the Flores Sea. Islands are scattered about its south and west. Its highlands are in two sections separated in the middle by less lofty places including a lake. Between the southern and southeastern peninsulas is Teluk Bay.
The Celebes's core--where all the peninsulas come together--has its west facing the Makassar(5) Strait that separates this island from Borneo(6). It and the peninsulas are all mountainous. The eastern bounds of this area--where the central and southeastern peninsulas attach--includes another lake.
Speakers of Bugis are the most numerous, approaching one in three. About half as many speak Makasar, and both languages are from the southern peninsula, with Bugis extending beyond, along the two coasts. (These two languages belong to the South Sulawesi group, which accounts for the majority of these islanders.) In Minahasa, Bolaang Bongondow and Borontalo have together more speakers than Makasar, with the Bolaang Bongondow speakers living the farthest out the spindly peninsula. Tantemboan is the only other local language spoken by more than one in twenty--all of its speakers living in the south. Together these five languages accout for less than three in four islanders. Perhaps there are significant numbers of recently immigrated Javanese speakers, but otherwise there is a plethora of local Austronesian languages. Partly overcoming this diversity is the national language, Indonesian, which is not spoken as a first language on the island, excepting some urban creoles.
South of Minahasa everyone is Sunni Moslem, while the northeast peninsula is predominantly Christian. Moslems are just shy of eight in ten; Christians less than two in ten.
Makasar(7), an old port, has for five centuries been coveted by foreigners: the Portugese, the Dutch and, most recently, the Japanese. It is today the island's largest city and capital of Southern(8) Celebes Province.
People have been here for tens of thousands of years, but it was expansion from the north of the Western Malayo-Polynesian language speakers some thousands of years ago that gave rise to today's groups. Sanskrit and Buddhism did not have the impact here that they did in Borneo. Indonesian, that is Malay, arrived with a Sumatran-based empire in the 12th century, and Islam arrived from the same direction only a couple of centuries later.
northeast of the Singir Islands
east of the Singir Islands
east of the base of Minahasa
southeast
south of Southern Celebes Province
west of Southern Celebes Province
west
north of Minahasa
(1) Or Sulawesi In Indonesian.
(2) Or Pilipinas in Tagalog.
(3) Sangihe in Indonesian.
(4) Maluku in Indonesian.
(5) Makasar in Indonesian.
(6) Kalimantan is the official name in Indonesia.
(7) Ujangpandang is its modern name.
(8) The word for southern in Indonesian is Selatan.