Introduction - Maldives
The Maldives is a chain of 26 atolls lying 600km Southwest of Sri Lanka at the Southern tip of India. The Maldives archipelago is made up of about 1,200 small coral islands in the Indian Ocean, more than 1,000 of them uninhabited and none of them much above sea level. 99% of the Maldives is water and just 1% land
Maldivian islands are generally covered in tropical vegetation and have beautiful white sand beaches. They are the postcard-perfect idyllic islands you imagine!
The Maldives has been a crossroads for sea traders for many centuries and the origin of the people of the country is mixed. Not much is known of the early history of the island people but the language and some archaeological finds of Buddhist relics indicate that the early settlers were from the southern Indian continent and the Buddhist Singhalese from Sri Lanka. Now, of course, the Maldives population of 240,000 is entirely Muslim.
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