Maldive Islands, officially the Republic of Maldives, is an island country consisting of a group of atolls stretching south of India’s Lakshadweep islands between Minicoy Island and the Chagos Archipelago, and about seven hundred kilometres (435 mi) south-west of Sri Lanka in the Laccadive Sea of Indian Ocean. The twenty-six atolls of Maldives encompass a territory featuring 1,192 islets, of which two hundred islands are inhabited.

The original inhabitants were Buddhist, probably since Ashoka’s period, in the 3rd century BC. Islam was introduced in 1153. The Maldives then came under the influence of the Portuguese (1558) and the Dutch (1654) seaborne empires. In 1887 it became a British protectorate. In 1965, the Maldives obtained independence from Britain (originally under the name “Maldive Islands”), and in 1968 the Sultanate was replaced by a Republic.

The name “Maldives” may derive from Maale Dhivehi Raajje (“The Island Kingdom [under the authority of] Male”), the local name for the Maldives. The island nation was synonymous with its capital “Maale” and sometimes called ‘Mahaldeeb’, and the people were called Maldivian ‘Dhivehin’. The word Dheeb/Deeb (archaic Dhivehi, a corruption of Dweep in Sanskrit) means ‘island’ and Dhives (Dhivehin) means ‘islanders’ (ie: the Maldivians). During the colonial era, the Dutch referred to the country as Maldivische Eilanden in their documentation, while “Maldive Island” is the anglicized version of the local name used by the British, which later came to be written as Maldives.

The ancient Sri Lankan chronicle, the Mahawamsa refers to an island called Mahiladiva or ‘Island of Women’ in Pali. The Mahawamsa is derived from an even older Sinhala work dating back to the 2nd century BC.

Some scholars theorize that the name “Maldives” derives from the Sanskrit mālādvīpa, meaning “garland of islands” . None of the names are mentioned in any literature, instead classical Sanskrit texts dating back to the Vedic times mention the “Hundred Thousand Islands” (Lakshadweepa); a generic name which would include not only the Maldives, but also the Laccadives and the Chagos island groups.

Some medieval Arab travelers such as Ibn Batuta called the islands “Mahal Dibiyat” from the Arabic word Mahal (“palace”).” This is the name currently inscribed in the scroll of the Maldive state emblem. Although the classical Yemeni name for Maldives is Dibajat.

Philostorgius, an Arian Greek historian who relates (circa AD 354) about a Divoeis (the Divaeans, pronounced Divians) hostage after fulfilling his mission to the Homerites, sailed to his island home known as “Divus” (Maldives).

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