Which small country is made up of 26 atolls in the Indian Ocean?

Which small country is made up of 26 atolls in the Indian Ocean? The answer is the Maldives.

The Maldives is an island country southwest of Sri Lanka and India, formed by a long, narrow chain of coral atolls. Its 26 natural atolls contain about 1,192 coral islands, although only a fraction are permanently inhabited. The atolls sit on a submarine ridge stretching roughly 960 kilometers from north to south.

The number can cause confusion because the Maldives also has 21 administrative divisions, which do not correspond exactly to the 26 geographic atolls. Malé, the crowded capital, lies on an island in Kaafu Atoll and is the country’s political and commercial center. The nation became independent from Britain in 1965 and became a republic in 1968.

The Maldives is also notable for its extremely low elevation: its natural average ground level is about 1.5 meters above sea level. Its ring-shaped reefs, lagoons, and sandy islands make it famous for marine tourism, while also leaving it especially vulnerable to sea-level rise.