Lakshadweep

Why Lakshadweep works

Lakshadweep is a union territory of India made up of 36 islands and islets, grouped into the Amindivi Islands in the north, the Laccadive Islands, and the atoll of Minicoy to the south of the Nine Degree Channel, sitting between the Arabian Sea and the Laccadive Sea roughly 220 to 440 kilometres off India's Malabar Coast. Its name, from Sanskrit and Malayalam, literally means "one hundred thousand islands." The islands cover a land area of only about 32.62 square kilometres, with just ten of them inhabited, yet the territory's lagoon spans 4,200 square kilometres and its exclusive economic zone reaches 400,000 square kilometres, since Lakshadweep forms the northernmost part of the undersea Chagos-Lakshadweep Ridge. Kavaratti serves as the territory's capital and single administrative headquarters.

Archaeological evidence from Kalpeni island suggests human settlement here from at least 1500 BCE, and the islands appear in the Buddhist Jataka tales and in Tamil Sangam literature, which places the region under the Chera dynasty of the Sangam period between the third century BCE and the third century CE. Local tradition credits Ubaidullah with bringing Islam to the islands in 661 CE, and by the sixteenth century all inhabited islands had been granted to the ruling family of Kannur; the Amindivi islands passed to Tipu Sultan's Mysore Kingdom in 1787 before being annexed by the British in 1799, while the remaining islands stayed under the Arakkal family until the British took over their administration directly in 1908. After Indian independence, the territory took its present shape in 1956 and was formally renamed Lakshadweep on 1 November 1973, with its administrative seat moved from Kozhikode to Kavaratti in 1964.

The islands sit within the Maldives-Lakshadweep-Chagos Archipelago tropical moist forests ecoregion and support no true forests, but coconut groves and coastal shrub cover most of the land, and the surrounding reefs are rich in life: over 600 recorded species of marine fish, 78 species of coral, and cetaceans including pygmy blue, Bryde's and sperm whales alongside dolphins have all been documented in Lakshadweep's waters. Pitti Island is a declared bird sanctuary, home to species such as the brown noddy and sooty tern among the 101 recorded bird species here. Tourism on the islands began in 1974 with the opening of the Bangaram atoll to international visitors, and the territory today depends on a mix of agriculture, fishing and tourism, with coconut and coconut products such as coir among its principal exports.

Lakshadweep has a tropical monsoon climate bordering on tropical savanna, warm year-round with temperatures between 20 and 32 degrees Celsius; tropical cyclones forming in the Arabian Sea rarely make direct landfall on the islands given their small size, though associated winds and waves can still reshape them. Fishing remains a major industry thanks to the territory's vast lagoon and exclusive economic zone, with an estimated annual catch of 21,016 tonnes, roughly 60 percent of it tuna and related species, landed mainly by mechanised boats and traditional country craft around eleven of the islands.

Islam, predominantly of the Sunni tradition, is the majority religion across 96.6 percent of Lakshadweep's population, most of whom descend from migrants from the Malabar coast and are ethnically related to the Mappilas of Kerala, while the southernmost island of Minicoy is populated by the Mahls, an ethnic group also found in the Maldives and speaking Mahl, a dialect of Dhivehi. English is the union territory's official language, and Jeseri, a Malayalam dialect, is widely spoken across the Amindivi and Laccadive islands. Agatti Airport, the territory's only airport, connects the islands by air, while regular ship services link Kochi on the mainland to Lakshadweep, and the Minicoy Island Lighthouse, built in 1885, is the oldest of the fifteen lighthouses guiding vessels among the islands today.

• Lakshadweep — Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Text adapted from the linked articles under CC BY-SA 4.0; edited for length.

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