Lakshadweep means a hundred thousand islands, yet it has only 36
Its name promises a hundred thousand islands, but Lakshadweep is a scatter of 36 coral islands off India's southwest coast with barely 32.62 square kilometres of land. Around that sliver lies a lagoon area of 4,200 square kilometres and an ocean economic zone of about 400,000, most of it water.
The archipelago sits between the Arabian and Laccadive seas, roughly 220 to 440 km off the Malabar Coast, and splits into three groups: the Amindivi Islands in the north, the Laccadives, and the atoll of Minicoy beyond the Nine Degree Channel. Only ten islands are inhabited, holding 64,473 people at the 2011 census, and none is more than about 1.6 km across. They crown the northern end of the Chagos-Lakshadweep Ridge, a submerged mountain chain. Charles Darwin suggested in 1842 that such atolls form as volcanic islands sink while their fringing reefs keep growing upward.
People have lived here since at least 1500 BCE, based on finds from Kalpeni. The Greek geographer Ptolemy listed island names in the second century CE, including Ammine for Amini and Monache for Minicoy, and Roman-era trade left traces on Kadamath and Androth. Local tradition credits Ubaidullah with bringing Islam in 661 CE. Rajendra Chola I captured the islands in 1018-19, and later the Portuguese came for coir rope fibre until islanders drove them out in 1545.
Control passed to the Arakkal family of Kannur, then partly to Tipu Sultan of Mysore in 1787 and to the British after 1799. Britain took over the rest in 1908 over unpaid taxes. After independence the islands became a separate union territory in 1956 and adopted the name Lakshadweep on 1 November 1973; the capital moved to Kavaratti in 1964.
Life still revolves around the sea. The reefs support over 600 fish species and 78 corals, Pitti island is a sanctuary for nesting turtles and seabirds, and fishing and farming dominate work. Most people speak Jeseri, a Malayalam dialect, though Minicoy uses Dhivehi. The low islands are vulnerable: a 2017 report found that Parali I in Bangaram atoll had eroded away entirely.
Source: Lakshadweep
