West Aceh Regency (Indonesian: Kabupaten Aceh Barat) is a regency in the Aceh special region of Indonesia. It is located on the island of Sumatra. The regency formerly covered a much larger area, but on 4 October 1999 the island districts of Simeulue were separated out to form their own regency, and on 10 April 2002 two additional regencies - Aceh Jaya and Nagan Raya - were created from parts of West Aceh; the residual regency currently covers an area of 2,927.95 square kilometres and had a population of 173,558 at the 2010 Census[2] and 198,736 at the 2020 Census;[3] the official estimate as at mid 2022 was 205,108 (comprising 103,7687 males and 101,340 females).[1]
The town of Meulaboh remains the seat of the regency government (notwithstanding incorrect reports that on 8 July 2013 it was separated out as an independent city). The regency is a palm oil-producing area.[4] Some of the people of the regency are Minangkabau-descended Aneuk Jamee.[5]
The regency is bordered by the regencies of Aceh Jaya to the west, Pidie to the north, Central Aceh to the northeast, and Nagan Raya to the southeast, and by the Indian Ocean to the southwest.
Administrative districts
The regency was divided administratively into twelve districts (kecamatan), listed below with their areas and populations at the 2010 Census[2] and the 2020 Census,[3] together with the official estimates as at mid 2023.[1] The table also includes the location of the district administrative centres, and the number of administrative villages (gampong) in each district, and its post code.
^Indonesia. Departemen Penerangan; Japenpa Foreign Languages Publishing Institute (1975). Indonesia handbook. Dept. of Information, Republic of Indonesia. Retrieved 20 December 2010.
