As we have said in the Maldives Introduction of this website "www.hellomaldives.com", the Maldivian archipelago is made up of about 1,190 small, tropical, palm and bush covered coral islands stretching across the Equator from 7 degree Latitude North. Together with the Lakshadweep formerly called "Laccadive Islands" to the North and the Chagos Islands to the South, forming part of a vast submarine mountain range, on the crest of which coral reefs have grown.

Measuring 820 km North to South and 120 km East to West at its greatest width, the closest neighbors are India and Shrilanka. With a population of about 280,000 people, only about 205 islands are inhabited. And more than 90 islands are set aside exclusively for tourist resort development (Tourism Zone).

One would expect the Indian Ocean, like any of the other oceans of the world to have its share of storms, waves and other phenomena related to large bodies of water. The Indian Ocean does fulfill this expectation till one begins to approach any of the coral atolls right in the middle of it. Indeed, the islands of Maldives are low lying and small. And these islands are rarely more than 2 meters (7 feet) above the sea level. Thus extremely vulnerable to surging tides and storms. You can cross most of the islands by a 10 minute walk, only a few are longer than 2 km. And the longest is 8 km (5 miles). Though our islands are protected by coral reefs with the help of storms, winds and waves; inevitably some are washed away. Thus, in 1812 and in 1955 devastating gales destroyed many northern islands. And in 1964, an island in Alifu (Ari) Atoll, known as "Hangyaameedhoo" was inundated by high waves. Further the capital, Male' was flooded by a severe storm in 1987.

If, as some scientists predict, the sea level continues to rise as a result of global warming, then Maldives, with its ancient and unique culture, may all be swept away within fifty years. Exactly how the atolls were formed is still unresolved. In 1842, after studying atolls in the Pacific and Atlantic, Charles Darwin suggested that they were created when volcanic land rose from the sea and a coral reef grew around its edge.

As the volcano gradually sank back into the sea it left the coral reefs encircling a shallow water-filled lagoon. Islands developed when currents and tides swept coral debris into sand bars, which eventually, were colonized by plants and trees. Although Darwin added a postscript to say that there was something special about the Maldives islands, most scientists accept his theory. More recently, however, Hans Hass has suggested that during hundreds of thousands of years a platform of coral reefs built up on the submerged mountain chain in the Indian Ocean until they burst through the surface. Porous and unstable, the coral platform sagged in the middle, leaving only a ring of the hardest and highest coral the rims of the atolls where debris and sand accumulated and vegetation took hold to form islands. These tiny specks of land separated by great stretches of water have long been a great puzzle.

Just as the early history of Maldives is shrouded in mystery, so no one knows exactly how many islands there are in the archipelago. The British Admiralty chart lists some 1,100 islands, and a recent government count found 1,196. But if sand bars and coral outcrops were included the figure would be close to 2,000. Accurate definition is further confused by the fact that islands come and go. Some combine, others split in two and occasionally islets emerge from the coral reefs. A 1955 storm created three new islands in Shaviyani Atoll, while others have slowly eroded. Around 1960, for instance, the fairly large island of Feydhoo Finolhu in Male' Atoll vanished through a combination of natural erosion and inhabitants taking away sand. It was later rebuilt.

To compound matters, as yet there is no agreement on what exactly constitutes an island in the archipelago: what, for instance, is the status of a large sand spit? Yet all this is part of the mystique of traveling through Maldives, where you may come across an island which has no name, is not shown on any map and has no human footprint on its shores. Officially, 199 of the islands are populated. Many more show signs of past settlement, and some desert islands are used regularly by neighboring islanders for collecting firewood, coconuts and even cultivation. As a rule of thumb, when the number of males who attend the local mosque falls below forty, islanders move to a more populous island.

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