Maldives is a group of atolls in what ocean?

The Maldives is a group of coral atolls in the Indian Ocean. The island nation lies southwest of Sri Lanka and India, stretching in a long, narrow chain across the central Indian Ocean.

The country is made up of roughly 1,190 coral islands arranged in a double chain of natural atolls. These reefs formed around the summit of a submarine ridge that extends for about 960 kilometers from north to south. Most of the land is low, sandy, and built from coral material, making the Maldives especially vulnerable to coastal erosion and rising sea levels.

The word “atoll” itself comes from Dhivehi, the Maldivian language, and entered wider international use through descriptions of the islands. Although the Maldives is often described as having 26 atolls geographically, the government administers the country through 21 administrative divisions. A nearby geographic mix-up is the Arabian Sea: it is part of the northern Indian Ocean, but the Maldives as a whole is conventionally located in the Indian Ocean.