Maldives—Profile
(2001 est. pop. 311,000). Nature has blessed the Maldives with a living environment of tropical atolls and coral reefs that form a highly vulnerable marine ecosystem. Located in the Indian Ocean, approximately 700 kilometers off the southern tip of India and the west coast of Sri Lanka, the whole Maldivian archipelago spreads over 1 million square kilometers, and comprises a total of 1,190 islands belonging to twenty-four distinct atolls. Arranged in a long, narrow double chain of coral atolls stretching 820 kilometers from north to south and 130 kilometers from west to east, the total island area above the sea surface covers a mere 300 square kilometers, rarely more than two meters above sea level. As a result, the Maldives face serious infrastructural, communication, and developmental problems. Extreme isolation, remoteness, and global warming threaten the existence of the Maldives.
Geologically, the double chain of atolls are the tips of two parallel submarine ridges that rise 300 to 400 meters from a flat submarine plateau. Atolls vary in shape from circular and elliptical to pear-shaped. The lagoon, 40 to 60 meters deep, located around each atoll, is encircled by a fringing reef that serves as a natural barrier, sheltering the islands against the tides and floods. Eighty percent of all the islands are lower than one meter above mean high tide level. The islands vary in shape from small sandbanks to elongated strip islands and in size from 0.5 to 2 square kilometers.
Year-round temperatures are tropical, with a daily mean at around 28°C. Precipitation is high, at around 2,000 millimeters annually, mostly occurring as heavy showers. Comparably dry months coincide with the peak season of tourist traffic from January to April. Strong monsoon winds (and storms) do not hit the Maldives, and tropical cyclones are unknown.
The Maldives were first settled in the fifth century CE by settlers from Sri Lanka and southern India. The Dutch controlled the region in the seventeenth century, and it was a British protectorate from 1887 to 1965, when the Maldives achieved independence. In the year 2001, only 202 islands were populated, with a further 87 uninhabited islands that were converted into tourist resort islands. With a total population of approximately 311,000 people on all 202 inhabited islands, the Maldives are overpopulated. The capital, Malé, located on an island in the center of the Maldivian archipelago, holds 75,000 people on only 1.5 square kilometers—therefore, a population density of 50,000 persons per square kilometer. Nearly half the population is under fifteen years of age, causing serious challenges of education and employment. Education levels in the Maldives are for the most part high, with a literacy rate of more than 90 percent, both for males and females. Secondary and higher secondary schools are located mainly in Malé, while primary schools are found on all islands, and a free education is offered to all. The Maldives, however, lack a university.
Major economic and employment sectors are tourism, fishery, manufacturing, and public and private services. As the coral soils are not very fertile, agriculture only plays a meager role.
Housing and urban problems seriously affect Malé. As the only urban center, Malé suffers from land shortage, traffic overcrowding, and declining freshwater quality and quantity. A large portion of Malé is reclaimed land on the reef flat; the island shores of Malé are in close proximity to the edges of the underlying reef platform. Malé is greatly burdened by a heavy migration of workers from other atolls and islands attracted by more favorable economic opportunities and better health and education services. Under the pressure of population, Malé capital was extended to the nearby former tourist island of Villingili; additionally, a new suburban town quarter is under construction through land reclamation on the reef platform between Hulule airport island and Farukolhufushi island, formerly known as Club Med Tourist Resort island.
Interatoll and interisland traffic and transportation is handicapped by the large distances over sea and the slowness of the still prevailing traditional, albeit mechanized, Maldivian dhoni boats. Transportation problems represent a major constraint to equitable distribution of goods and services throughout the country. Dhoni craft satisfy the basic interisland trade and commerce of goods as well as of passengers. Speedboats and air taxis are in service only for quick transportation of tourists, mostly between the international airport and the tourist resort islands. Internal air transport is limited; the national carrier, Air Maldives, serves four domestic airports in addition to Hulule. Domestic air transportation is too expensive for Maldivians, hence the continued popularity of dhoni sea-transport. There is a modern telecommunication network across all of the atolls and inhabited islands. Health services options are best in Malé, with outpost hospitals on several islands.
As the Maldive islands abound in rich marine biodiversity, international tourism has become the leading component of the economy. After a mild start in 1972, tourism developed aggressively from the 1980s, under the First Tourism Master Plan. Resort islands were developed mainly in North and South Malé atolls, in close proximity to Hulule. When the Second Tourism Master Plan, valid for 1996 to 2005, came into effect, resort islands were regionally diversified to other atolls adjacent to Malé and Ari atolls, in order to spread the benefits of tourism.
Resort islands are restricted to foreign tourists only; the number of resort islands is projected to increase to more than one hundred in the early part of the twenty-first century. Tourist arrivals increased to an annual total of 465,000 in 2000. Two-thirds of all tourists come from central and western Europe; the remaining one-third comes from Asia.
Tourism development is under the strict control of the government of the Maldives, mainly to ensure a minimum impact of tourism on the marine environment and on cultural integrity. Tourism in the Maldives has an exclusive nature; this is manifested in the clublike style of most of the resort islands. Environmental problems are, in fact, the biggest threat to sustainable future development of the Maldives. Sea-level rise, due to global warming, is the one thing most seriously threatening the future of the Maldives.
Manfred Domroes
Further Reading
Domroes, Manfred. (2001) "Conceptualising State-Controlled Resort Islands for an Environment-Friendly Development of Tourism: The Maldivian Experience." Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 22:122–137.
——. (1999) "Tourism in the Maldives: The Resort Concept and Tourist-Related Services." Insular International Journal of Island Affairs 8: 7–14.
Government of Maldives, Ministry of Planning, Human Resources and Environment. (1994) The Maldives, State of the Environment. Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States, Barbados. Malé, Republic of Maldives: Ministry of Planning, Human Resources and Environment.
——. (1981) Statistical Yearbook of Maldives. Malé, Republic of Maldives: Ministry of Planning and Development.
Government of Maldives, Department of Tourism. (1983) Maldives: A Nation of Islands. Bangkok, Thailand: Maldives Department of Tourism.
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