Earth Data Encyclopedia

Maldives Islands

Liu, C.^1*  Shi, R. X.¹  Yang, A. Q.²  Zhu, Y. Q.¹

1. Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China;

2. Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China

Keywords: Maldives; Natural Atoll; Administrative Atoll; Gan Island; data encyclopedia

The Maldives Islands, the Asian country, is located in the Indian Ocean, 426 km southwest from Indian mainland. Its geolocation is from 0°42′17″S in south to 7°6′23″N in north, from 72°38′19″E in west to 73°45′35″E in east (Figure 1). Because of the location nearing the equator, most areas of the islands are in tropical monsoon climate environment, hot, humid and rainy. The tropical rainforest covers most southern area of the Islands. There are total 1,359 islands in 30 natural atolls and 20 administrative atolls, which distribute a long north-south.

The 30 natural atolls are: South Thiladhunmathee Atoll, Maamakunudhoo Atol, North Miladhunmadulu Atoll, South Miladhunmadulu Atoll, North Maalhosmadulu Atoll, Alifushi Atoll, Faadhippoihu Atoll, South Maalhosmadulu Atoll, Goldhoo Atoll, South Male Atoll, North Male Atoll, Gaafaru Atoll, Kaashidhoo Atoll, North Ali Atoll, Rasdhoo Atoll, Thoddoo Atoll, South Ali Atoll, Felidhu Atoll, Mulaku Atoll, North Nilandhu Atoll, South Nilandhu Atoll, Kolmuhadulu Atoll, Hahdhunmathee Atoll, North Huvadhoo Atoll, South Huvadhoo Atoll, Fuvahmulah Atoll, Addu Atoll, Ihawandhippolhu Atoll, North Thiladhunmathee Atoll and Vattaru Atoll.

There are 20 administrative atolls in Maldives; they are listed at the Table 1.

The total area of Maldives is 236.82 km², consisted of 1,359 islands. In which, three of them are larger than 4 km², 41 islands are larger than 1 km², 1,196 islands are larger than 2,500 m². The biggest island is the Gan Island, with the area of 6.99 km².

The dataset was developed based on integration among the Google Earth images in meter and related maps and records. The dataset is archived in both .kmz and .shp data formats with the compressed data size of 5.18 MB.

Table 1  Administrative Atolls of Maldives