page_title: Lakshadweep
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Lakshadweep / Geography
caption_attribution_description: Satellite picture of of the Lakshadweep islands Deutsch: Satellitenfoto der Lakkadiven
context_page_description: Lakshadweep, formerly known as the Laccadive, Minicoy and Aminidivi Islands, is a group of islands in the Laccadive Sea, 200 to 440 km off the southwestern coast of India. The archipelago is administered as a union territory and district of India. They were also known as Laccadive Islands, although geographically this is only the name of the central subgroup of the group. Lakshadweep means "one hundred thousand islands" in Sanskrit, Marathi and Malayalam. The islands form the smallest Union Territory of India and their total surface area is just 32 km². The lagoon area covers about 4,200 km², the territorial waters area 20,000 km² and the exclusive economic zone area 400,000 km². The region forms a single Indian district with 10 subdivisions. Kavaratti serves as the capital of the Union Territory and the region comes under the jurisdiction of Kerala High Court. The islands are the northernmost of the Lakshadweep-Maldives-Chagos group of islands, which are the tops of a vast undersea mountain range, the Chagos-Laccadive Ridge.
  As the islands have no aboriginal inhabitants, scholars have suggested different histories for the settlement of these islands.
context_section_description: Lakshadweep is an archipelago of twelve atolls, three reefs and five submerged banks, with a total of about thirty-nine islands and islets. The reefs are in fact also atolls, although mostly submerged, with only small unvegetated sand cays above the high-water mark. The submerged banks are sunken atolls. Almost all the atolls have a northeast–southwest orientation with the islands lying on the eastern rim, and a mostly submerged reef on the western rim, enclosing a lagoon. It has ten inhabited islands, 17 uninhabited islands, attached islets, four newly formed islets and five submerged reefs.
  The main islands are Kavaratti, Agatti, Minicoy, and Amini. The total population of the territory is 64,429 according to the 2011 census. Agatti has an airport with direct flights from Kochi.
caption: Satellite picture showing the atolls of the Lakshadweep except for Minicoy.
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