Maldives
Maldives (officially Republic of the Maldives) is a country in Southern Asia, with its capital at Malé, and is home to roughly 527.8K people.
Maldivian is the official language; the currency in circulation is Maldivian rufiyaa (.ރ); people from here are called Maldivan.
- »It is the lowest-lying country on Earth, averaging around 1.5 m above sea level.
- »The Maldives comprises roughly 1,200 islands grouped into coral atolls; fewer than 200 are inhabited.
Maldives is an archipelago, and that is the whole story of its silhouette: 14 landmasses are big enough to see at map scale, the largest holding only 32% of the territory, and 176 separate pieces in all.
It straddles the equator.
Maldives shares no land border with anything, so every approach is by sea or air. The closest other territories on file are Sri Lanka (882 km), India (2,182 km) and Seychelles (2,233 km), measured centre to centre.
Malé is one of the most densely populated cities in the world, filling its entire island so completely that the shoreline is the city limit.
109 km² (42 sq mi), 193rd largest of 198 countries and territories on file.
Population 527,799, 170th of 198 on file. That averages 4,842 per km² (12,541 per sq mi).
The green rectangle with a white crescent sits on a red field, red for the blood of national heroes, green for palms and prosperity, the crescent for Islam.