ABSTRACT
The Union Territory of Lakshadweep, until 1973 known as the Laccadive, Minicoy and Aminidivi Islands, lies in the Arabian Sea off the west coast of southern India, stretched across similar latitudes to the State of Kerala. Closer still, south of a maritime international border and the Eight Degrees Channel, is the Maldive Islands. The territory consists not of the ‘100, 000 islands’ suggested by the name (and, historically, probably also referred to the Maldives), but of 12 atolls, three reefs and five submerged banks. Another suggested origin of the name is that the islands were a landmark target (laksh) for ancient navigators across the Arabian Sea. Lakshadweep achieved its present, centrally
administered status in 1956, when it was separated from the State of Madras (now Tamil Nadu). It is the smallest of all India’s territories or states, with a land area of only 32 sq km (12.4 sq miles), although this somehow manages to enclose 4,200 sq km of lagoon waters (including open reefs, etc.) and to be strewn across 20,000 sq km of territorial waters. The largest of the 10 permanently inhabited islands is Minicoy (Maliku-4.4 sq km), followed by Kavaratti (3.6 sq km) and Kadmat (3.1 sq km). Androth, at 2.8 sq km, is the next largest inhabited island, although when bracketed with surrounding atolls into one of the nine units in Lakshadweep used, for instance, in the provisional census results of 2001, the Androth group had the largest land area, at 4.84 sq km. As single islands, Agatti (2.7 sq km) and Amini (2.6 sq km) follow in the size ranking among the inhabited islands, while the smallest one is Bitra (0.1 sq km), which can often disappear from separate enumeration (usually included with its neighbour to the east, the next smallest inhabited island, Chetlat).
