The Maluku Islands or the Moluccas are an archipelago within Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located east of Sulawesi, west of New Guinea, and north and east of Timor. The islands were also the historical core of the Spice Islands known to the Chinese and Europeans, but this term usually included other adjacent areas such as Sulawesi.