Bantayan

Bantayan corresponds to Bantaeng, a coastal district on the south coast of the southern peninsula of Sulawesi, facing the Flores Sea. Behind the narrow coastal plain the land climbs toward the volcanic massif of Lompobattang, so that fields and gardens give way to cool upland. Fishing and coastal trade tied the lowland villages to the Makassar and Bugis ports around the peninsula.

The name Bantayan appears in the Nagarakretagama of 1365 among the places on Sulawesi listed as lying within the Majapahit sphere. In later centuries the district lay within the orbit of the Makassar kingdom of Gowa.