Where is Maldives?

Described as paradise on earth, Maldives is an archipelago country consisting of 19 island groups located in the Indian Ocean off the southwest of India, close to Sri Lanka. / Where is Maldives?

Maldives, meaning a chain of islands in the local language, stretches for 871 kilometers in a north-south direction just south of the equator. The islands are spread over 26 atolls with coral reefs.

Out of a total of 1196 islands, only 220 are inhabited. All of the islands are about 1 meter above sea level. This makes the Maldives particularly vulnerable to constantly rising sea levels. The highest altitude is 5.1 meters on Vilingilli island in Addu Atoll.

Offshore reefs sometimes provide the only protection against severe monsoon storms. The islands are covered with palm trees and surrounded by white beaches and clear lagoons.

A third of the Maldives population lives on the main island of Malé, which is also the only true city in the Maldives. Malé is one of the most densely populated cities in the world: At just 5.7 square kilometers, multi-storey houses are planned to house more than 134,000 people.

Therefore, planning began in 1997 for an island to be built by land reclamation about three kilometers from Malé. The new island of Hulhumalé had a population of 17,149 in 2014.

Located mostly in the calm Indian Ocean, the Maldives enjoy a consistently hot, tropical climate with high humidity. Temperatures rarely drop below 25°C, even at night. The climate is characterized by the southwest monsoon from May to October and the north-east monsoon from November to April. The southwest monsoon usually occurs in June and July, and the wind brings heavier precipitation. The best time to travel is from January to April.

In fact, the settlement date of the Maldives, which is seen as a paradise on earth as the summits of an underwater mountain range, is not exactly clear. Legends are that immigrants, sailors, traders, and shipwrecked people of Arab, African or Malaysian descent from Sri Lanka founded the country.

Islam came to the islands with Arab sailors: the Maldives today is a republic, one of the three countries on earth that, along with Qatar and Oman, is a 100 percent Muslim state.

North Malé Atoll is one of the two largest atolls in the Maldives. It consists of the island of Male, the capital of which is Male, and the international airport on the island of Hulhule, and a number of major tourist islands. Another major atoll is Addu Atoll, home to Gan’s former British air force base. The islands in the country are divided into “local islands” where Maldivians live and “holiday islands” reserved for holidaymakers.

The current population of Maldives is around 400 thousand. More than a third of them live in a confined space in the capital, Malé, on the North Male Atoll. Because the land on the islands is not very fertile, many foods and almost all other goods have to be imported.

The national language of Maldives is Dhivehi, which is heavily enriched with Arabic foreign words and has its own script called Thaana. English is commonly used in southern atolls and hotel islands.

What Time is it in Maldives?

There is no daylight saving time in the Maldives as there is coordinated universal time (UTC) throughout the year. The answer to the question “What time is it in Maldives” can be easily found by adding 2 hours to Turkey time. The time difference between Maldives and European countries, which is UTC +5, is 5 hours. Maldives time is 12 hours behind Los Angeles, 10 hours behind Chicago, and 9 hours behind New York and Toronto.

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