ABSTRACT
The Union Territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands lies in the Bay of Bengal, along an arc stretching from the Irrawaddy (Ayeyarwady) delta in the north-east to the island of Sumatra in the south-east. The territory’s nearest international neighbours, therefore, are, respectively, Myanmar (formerly Burma) and Indonesia. Eastwards, across the Andaman Sea, is the Malay Peninsula, here divided between Myanmar and Thailand. While the northernmost Andaman Islands lie only 193 km (120 miles) from Cape Negrais, the tip of mainland Myanmar, and Great Nicobar is about two-thirds of that distance from Achin Head (Cape Pedro) on the Sumatran coast of Indonesia, the island chain is more significantly separated from the rest of India. Chennai (Madras) in Tamil Nadu is 1,190 km by sea to the west of Port Blair, the territorial capital, in the Andaman Islands, while the coast of West Bengal is some 30 km further, but to the north-west (a little inland, Kolkata, formerly Calcutta, is 2,255 km away). The islands were grouped as a single administrative territory by the imperial Government of India in 1869, restored to British sovereignty in 1945 (after a Japanese occupation since 1942) and transferred to the jurisdiction of independent India in 1947. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands formally became an integral part of India, as the only ‘Part D’state, in 1950, to be redesignated (like the former ‘Part C’ states) a Union Territory in 1956. The islands together cover a land area of 8,249 sq km (3,185 sq miles), of which the Andamans constitute 77.7%, making the Andaman and Nicobar Islands the largest of India’s union territories and, indeed, larger than two of its states.
