Lakshadweep is a Union Territory of India. It consists of 36 coral islands totaling 32 kmē in the Arabian Sea, between 200 to 300 km off the coast of Kerala.
The main islands are Kavarrati (It is the Capital of Lakshadweep), Agatti, Minicoy, and Amini. The total population of the 10 inhabited islands is about 60,595 according to Census 2001. Agatti has an airport where there are direct flights from Cochin.
The name of the archipelago literally means hundred thousand islands (laksha = one hundred thousand, dweep = island). Until 1973, the island group was known by the anglicized name Laccadives (compare to Maldives, Sanskrit name Maladweepa).
The people of the islands speak a dialect of Malayalam and almost all of them are Muslims. It is a folk belief that they are descendants of traders who where washed up on the islands during a particularly heavy storm.
External links
Indian Reef Region - Lakshadweep Islands (http://www.reefindia.org/irregion/laksha.htm)
Official Site for Lakshadweep Islands (http://lakshadweep.nic.in/)
The people of the islands are ethnically similar to the people of the Kerala coast of India and are of mixed Indian and Arab descent, except on the southernmost and largest island, Minicoy, where people closely resemble Maldivians, speak Mahl, a language closely related to Dhivehi (Maldivian) which could even be a dialect.
The rest of the islands became a suzerainty of the Chirakkal family of Cannanore in return for a payment of annual tribute.
These islands were attached to the Malabar district of the Madras Presidency.
Between the Laccadives and the Maldives to the south lies the isolated Minikoi, which physically belongs to neither group, though somewhat nearer to the Maldives (q.v.).
The islands have in nearly all cases emerged from the eastern and protected side of the reef, the western being completely exposed to the S.W. monsoon.
The islands subsequently became a suzerainty of the raja of Cannanore, and after the peace of Seringapatam, 1792 the southern group was permitted to remain under the management of the native chief at a yearly tribute.
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