"Brothers Islands, Nelson Island, and Peros Banhos, as well as the island groups of the Egmont Islands, Eagle Islands, and the Salomon Islands. BIOT is an archipelago of 55 islands. They were annexed by the UK in 1965 under the Treaty of Paris from a much larger archipelago which in 1804 consisted of 2,300 independent islands. BIOT is situated in the Indian Ocean near the Equator. It is roughly halfway between Africa and Indonesia, about southwest of India. It is situated approximately from South India and to the south of the Maldives With a coastline stretching , it is the"
"from President Abdullah Yameen's ruling party. Yameen refused to comply with the court order and imposed a state of emergency to last for 15 days. Protesters demonstrated on the streets against President Abdullah Yameen after the announcement of the emergency. The Maldives consists of 1,192 coral islands grouped in a double chain of 26 atolls, along the north-south direction, spread over roughly , making this one of the world's most dispersed countries. It lies between latitudes 1°S and 8°N, and longitudes 72° and 74°E. The atolls are composed of live coral reefs and sand bars, situated atop a submarine ridge"
"indian ocean, right above the equator. It has a population of 300,000 and it consists of 1192 islands, 192 of which are inhabited. The islands are formed around twenty six different atolls. It spans 90,000 square kilometers which makes it the most geographically dispersed country in the world. Most of the resorts in the Maldives are located by the Ari atoll and the Kaafu atoll, which surround the international airport. The growth of the tourism sector in the Maldives has been growing at at average rate of 5.2 percent over the last five years, the global average for tourist growth"
"Maluku Islands The Maluku Islands or the Moluccas () are an archipelago within Banda Sea, 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 known as the Spice Islands due to the nutmeg, mace and cloves that were originally exclusively found there, the presence of which sparked colonial interest from Europe in the 16th century. The Maluku Islands formed a single province from Indonesian independence until 1999, when it was split into two provinces."
"its central location. The Maldives archipelago is located on the Chagos-Laccadive Ridge, a vast submarine mountain range in the Indian Ocean, which also forms a terrestrial ecoregion, together with the Chagos Archipelago and Lakshadweep. With an average ground-level elevation of above sea level, it is the world's lowest country, with even its highest natural point being the lowest in the world, at . Due to the consequent risks posed by rising sea levels, the government pledged in 2009 to make the Maldives a carbon-neutral country by 2019. Islam was introduced to the Maldivian archipelago in the 12th century which was"
"Folklore of the Maldives Maldivian mythology or Maldivian folklore is the body of myths, tales and anecdotes belonging to the oral tradition of Maldivians. Even though some of the Maldivian myths were already mentioned briefly by British commissioner in Ceylon HCP Bell towards the end of the 19th century, their study and publication were carried out only quite recently by Spanish writer and artist Xavier Romero-Frias, at a time when that ancestral worldview was quickly disappearing. The Maldives lie in the warm equatorial area of the Indian Ocean surrounded by very deep waters. This nation is made up exclusively of"
"West Indies The West Indies is a region of the North Atlantic Ocean in the Caribbean that includes the island countries and surrounding waters of three major archipelagos: the Greater Antilles, the Lesser Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago. The region is known as the area running from Florida westward along the Gulf Coast, and then south along the Mexican coast through Central America and then eastward across the northern coast of South America. Indigenous peoples were the first inhabitants of the West Indies. In 1492, Christopher Columbus became the first European to arrive at the islands, where he is believed"
"Chagos Archipelago The Chagos Archipelago () or Chagos Islands (formerly the Bassas de Chagas, and later the Oil Islands) are a group of seven atolls comprising more than 60 individual tropical islands in the Indian Ocean about 500 kilometres (310 mi) south of the Maldives archipelago. This chain of islands is the southernmost archipelago of the Chagos-Laccadive Ridge, a long submarine mountain range in the Indian Ocean. Officially part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, the Chagos were home to the Chagossians, a Bourbonnais Creole-speaking people, for more than a century and a half until the United Kingdom evicted them"
"Atoll and South Miladhunmadulu (Noonu) Atoll. Māmakunudhoo Atoll or Makunudhoo (Malcolm Atoll in the Admiralty Chart) is the westernmost atoll in the Maldives. A large reef with lagoon, long with and average breadth of . It has only one inhabited island, Makunudhoo and three other islands (namely Innafushi, Fenboahuraa and Edipparufushi) and it lies west of the NW part of the Miladhummadulhu group. It is said to have been unknown to non-Maldivians previous to the 1834-36 survey of the Maldives. According to the locals, many ships have been lost on its barren reefs with crew, cargo and all. These include"
"the tropical Indian Ocean, including most of the Indian Ocean coast of the Indonesian archipelago, the northern Australian coast, and the Cocos and Christmas islands. It extends through the tropical seas connecting the Pacific and Indian Oceans, including the Java Sea in central Indonesia, the South China Sea between the Asian land mass and the Philippine and Malay archipelagos, and the Arafura Sea separating Australia and New Guinea. It includes the seas surrounding island groups of the western Pacific, including the Ryukyu Islands, Caroline Islands, Marianas Islands, New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Tonga,"
"Atolls of the Maldives The Maldives are formed by a number of natural atolls plus atolls in the form of a few islands and isolated reefs today which form a pattern stretching from 7 degrees 10′ North to 0 degrees 45′ South. The Maldives is a long and narrow country formed by 26 natural atolls. Some atolls are in the form of a number of islands by time and in the form of isolated reefs, which could be classified as smaller atoll formations. All land above the surface in the Maldives is of coralline origin. The atolls of the Maldives"
"Antilles The Antilles (; ""Antilles"" in French; ""Antillas"" in Spanish; ""Antillen"" in Dutch and ""Antilhas"" in Portuguese) is an archipelago bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the south and west, the Gulf of Mexico to the northwest, and the Atlantic Ocean to the north and east. The Antillean islands are divided into two smaller groupings: the Greater Antilles and the Lesser Antilles. The Greater Antilles includes the larger islands of Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola (subdivided into Haiti and the Dominican Republic) and the Cayman Islands. The Lesser Antilles contains the northerly Leeward Islands, the southeasterly Windward Islands, and the"
"Crocodile Islands The Crocodile Islands are a group of islands belonging to the Yan-nhaŋu people of the Northern Territory of Australia. They are located off the coast of Arnhem Land in the Arafura Sea. The islands were formed by stabilising sea levels 5000 years before present. They were discovered by the Dutch in the seventeenth century and named the ""Crocodils Eÿlandt"". Several of the Crocodile Islands, with their associated mudflats, have been identified by BirdLife International as forming the Milingimbi Islands Important Bird Area (IBA) because they support large numbers of waders, or shorebirds. Murrungga Island has one of the"
"Marshall Islands The Marshall Islands, officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands (), are an island country and a United States associated state near the equator in the Pacific Ocean, slightly west of the International Date Line. Geographically, the country is part of the larger island group of Micronesia. The country's population of 53,158 people (at the 2011 Census) is spread out over 29 coral atolls, comprising 1,156 individual islands and islets. The islands share maritime boundaries with the Federated States of Micronesia to the west, Wake Island to the north, Kiribati to the southeast, and Nauru to the south."
"the South Atlantic Ocean; Gulf of Tadjoura in Djibouti, Gladden Spit in Belize; Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia; Kerala,Lakshadweep, Gulf of Kutch and Saurashtra coast of Gujarat in India; Útila in Honduras; Southern Leyte; Donsol, Pasacao and Batangas in the Philippines; off Isla Mujeres and Isla Holbox in Yucatan and Bahía de los Ángeles in Baja California, México; Maamigili island, Maldives; Ujung Kulon National Park in Indonesia; Cenderawasih Bay National Park in Nabire, Papua, Indonesia; Flores Island, Indonesia; Nosy Be in Madagascar; off Tofo Beach near Inhambane in Mozambique; the Tanzanian islands of Mafia, Pemba, Zanzibar; Gulf of Tadjoura in"
"Solomon Islands (archipelago) The Solomon Islands are an archipelago in the western South Pacific Ocean, located northeast of Australia. They are in the Melanesia subregion and bioregion of Oceania. The archipelago forms much of the territory of Solomon Islands, while the northwestern islands are within the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, in eastern Papua New Guinea. It forms the eastern boundary of the Solomon Sea. The Solomon Islands consist of both volcanic islands of varying activity and of coral atolls. Bougainville Island is the largest in the archipelago. The climate of the islands is tropical, however temperatures do not greatly fluctuate"
"Molucca Sea The Moluccan Sea (Indonesian: ""Laut Maluku"") is located in the western Pacific Ocean, around the vicinity of Indonesia, specifically bordered by the Indonesian Islands of Celebes (Sulawesi) to the west, Halmahera to the east, and the Sula Islands to the south. The Molucca Sea has a total surface area of 77,000 square miles (200,000 square km). The Molucca Sea is rich in coral and has many diving sites due to the deepness of its waters. The deepness of the water explains the reasoning behind dividing the sea into three zones, which functions to transport water from the Pacific"
"coast, the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal, and Andaman Sea, as well as the coastal waters surrounding Madagascar, the Seychelles, Comoros, Mascarene Islands, Maldives, and Chagos Archipelago. The transition between the Western Indo-Pacific and Central Indo-Pacific occurs at the Strait of Malacca and in southern Sumatra. The Western Indo-Pacific does not include the temperate and polar waters of the Indian Ocean, which are part of separate marine realms. The boundary between the Western Indo-Pacific and Temperate Southern Africa marine realms lies in southern Mozambique, where the southernmost mangroves and tropical corals are found."
"and are classified as union territories. The Lakshadweep Islands lie off the coast of Kerala in the Arabian sea with an area of . They consist of twelve atolls, three reefs, and five submerged banks, with a total of about 35 islands and islets.) (The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are located between 6° and 14° north latitude and 92° and 94° east longitude. They consist of 572 islands, lying in the Bay of Bengal near the Myanma coast running in a North-South axis for approximately 910 km. They are located from Kolkata (Calcutta) and from Cape Negrais in Burma. The"
"Malé Atoll Malé Atoll is a group of natural atolls in the Republic of Maldives. It consists of two separate atolls: North Malé Atoll and South Malé Atoll. Together with Kaashidhoo Island and Gaafaru, the group forms the administrative division of Malé Atoll which is referred to by its Thaana alphabet letter code name Kaafu Atoll. Malé, capital of the Maldives is geographically located at the southern end of North Malé atoll. The island together with the adjacent islands of Hulhule where the only international airport of the Maldives is located, the artificial island Hulhumalé and Villingili are administratively not"
"change is not only affecting the Maldives and the Marshall Islands. All islands, especially low lying ones with coastal population centers, are threatened by the effects of climate change. Many of the Pacific Island nations like the Marshall Islands, including Tuvalu and Nauru, are currently having to deal with rising sea levels. Tuvalu is a small Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean. It can be found about halfway between Hawaii and Australia. It is made up of nine tiny islands, five of which are coral atolls while the other four consist of land rising from the sea bed."
"in parts of the African coast. Investigation into folios 19V to 20R of the Mao Kun Map which covers the Indian Ocean including South India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and East Africa suggests that it is a composite of four maps, one for Sri Lanka, one for South India one for the Maldives and one for around 400 km of the East African coast, no further south than 6 degrees south of the Equator. Each of these maps is positioned at a different orientation to fit with the ocean currents and winds required of a sailing chart, rather than a"
"Names of Maldives The Maldives has been known by many different names during its long history of more than two thousand years. Although several different names are given, the location and the description of the islands confirm the fact that it is the Maldives. In ancient times Malé was also called """"Mahal"""", considered to be the origin of """"Mahal Dvipa"""" or """"Maléldvip""."" Throughout known history, Malé or Mahal was always the most important island, the island where the king resided. It is therefore a logical assumption that the name given to the islands, ""Mahal Dvipa, ""contained a reference to the"
"and out of the atoll. Those are the best places to do drift dives and where you can see large pelagic fish. Each island in the Maldives has its own lagoon, usually not very deep. They can reach around 20 meters in depth and are mostly sandy. Those places are protected from the current, making them an ideal spot to conduct diving classes. They do not generally offer much in the way of sea life. The Maldives comprises mainly open water, with only 1% of the country being land-based. The land is spread over 1,192 islets, each of which forms"
"much of the trade in the Indian Ocean, first the Portuguese, then the Dutch, and the French occasionally meddled in local politics. However, this interference ended when the Maldives became a British Protectorate in the 19th century and the Maldivian monarchs were granted a good measure of self-governance. The Maldives gained total independence from the British on 26 July 1965. However, the British continued to maintain an air base on the island of Gan in the southernmost atoll until 1976. The British departure in 1976 at the height of the Cold War almost immediately triggered foreign speculation about the future"
"Windward Islands The Windward Islands, also known as the Islands of Barlovento, are the southern, generally larger islands of the Lesser Antilles, within the West Indies. They lie south of the Leeward Islands, approximately between latitudes 10° and 16° N and longitudes 60° and 62° W. As a group they start from Dominica and reach southward to the north of Trinidad & Tobago and west of Barbados. The Windward Islands are called such because they were more windward to sailing ships arriving to the New World than the Leeward Islands, given that the prevailing trade winds in the West Indies"
"Baa Atoll Biosphere Reserve The Baa Atoll Biosphere Reserve is located in the central western part of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. The atoll is situated just north of the Kashidhoo Kandhoo channel, which geographically divides the northern chain of atolls. It supports one of the largest groups of coral reefs in the Indian Ocean, and acts as a stepping stone for the transport of planktonic larvae of reef organisms from the western and eastern Indian Ocean. The reserve is home to a globally significant biodiversity among its numerous reefs and demonstrates a long history of human interaction with"
"Landaa Giraavaru Landaa Giraavaru, often called Four Seasons at Landaagiraavaru, is an island in the Baa Atoll in the Maldives (UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve). Home to a luxury ""Four Seasons"" resort since 2004, it is one of the many island resorts of the Maldives. Landaa Giraavaru is one of the Maldive Islands, located in the northeast of Baa Atoll. Surrounded by a white sand beach and a wide coral reef, its waters are quiet and shallow, and shelter an important biodiversity. The closest inhabited islands are Kamadhoo in the southeast and Kudarikilu in the northwest, but there are also numerous"
"Mariana Islands The Mariana Islands (; also the Marianas) are a crescent-shaped archipelago comprising the summits of fifteen mostly dormant volcanic mountains in the western North Pacific Ocean, between the 12th and 21st parallels north and along the 145th meridian east. They lie south-southeast of Japan, west-southwest of Hawaii, north of New Guinea and east of the Philippines, demarcating the Philippine Sea's eastern limit. They are found in the northern part of the western Oceanic sub-region of Micronesia, and are politically divided into two jurisdictions of the United States: the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and, at the southern"
"Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; , ) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast, at a latitude of about 52°S. The archipelago, with an area of , comprises East Falkland, West Falkland and 776 smaller islands. As a British overseas territory, the Falklands have internal self-governance, and the United Kingdom takes responsibility for their defence and foreign affairs. The Falkland Islands' capital is Stanley on East Falkland. Controversy exists over the Falklands' discovery and subsequent colonisation by Europeans. At various times, the"
"reef systems and slow the creation of coral island chains. Most of the world's coral islands are in the Pacific Ocean. The American territories of Jarvis, Baker and Howland Islands are clear examples of coral islands.The Lakshadweep Islands union territory of India is a group of 39 coral Islands, and some minor islets and banks. Also, some of the islands belonging to Kiribati are considered coral islands. The Maldives also consist of coral islands. St. Martin's Island is an 8 km coral island located in Bangladesh. Coral islands are also located near Pattaya and Ko Samui, Thailand. Many coral islands"
"the Northeastern extreme of Celebes. The Portuguese, Dutch, British, and Spanish Empires fought each other for control of the spice islands that can only be accessed through the Moluccan Sea. The sea is a very seismically active area due to the Molucca Sea Plate. Molucca Sea The Moluccan Sea (Indonesian: ""Laut Maluku"") is located in the western Pacific Ocean, around the vicinity of Indonesia, specifically bordered by the Indonesian Islands of Celebes (Sulawesi) to the west, Halmahera to the east, and the Sula Islands to the south. The Molucca Sea has a total surface area of 77,000 square miles (200,000"
"They are found from Mexico and around the Gulf of California down to Peru and the Galapagos Islands. Around the Indian Ocean, it ranges from the Red Sea and eastern Africa to Seychelles, the Maldives, the Persian Gulf, India, Sri Lanka, the Andaman Sea, Australia, and Indonesia. Populations in the Atlantic Ocean range from New York down to the Gulf of Mexico, the Bahamas, the Caribbean Sea and down to Brazil in the western side. Around the eastern Atlantic Ocean, it ranges from the British Isles and the Bay of Biscay to Azores, the Canary Islands and western Africa. Some"