ABSTRACT

The Maldives are about 1.7 times the size of Washington, DC, and is comprised of 1,190 islands grouped into 26 atolls. It is an archipelago with a strategic location astride and along major sea-lanes in the Indian Ocean. During World War II, the Maldives was still part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, and the British Grid that covered the entire area was the "Maldive-Chagos Belt." The name of the local Maldives astronomic datum is unknown, but in July 2004, Ruth Adams of the UK Hydrographic Office stated that “The difference between the original astro graticule and WGS84 Datum is over 3 miles” (Hydrographic Journal). The difference is primarily in the East-West component; that being a function of time-keeping chronometer error. A recent issue of Coordinates magazine contained an article by V. Raghu Venkataraman, et al., about the National Remote Sensing Agency, Hyderabad, India, that performed a “Large scale topographical mapping for the Republic of Maldives”.