The Nicobar Islands are an archipelagic island chain in the eastern

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by ...

. They are located in

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland ...

, northwest of

Aceh Aceh ( ), officially the Aceh Province ( ace, Nanggroë Acèh; id, Provinsi Aceh) is the westernmost province of Indonesia. It is located on the northernmost of Sumatra island, with Banda Aceh being its capital and largest city. Granted a ...

Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

, and separated from

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

to the east by the Andaman Sea. Located southeast of the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographical region in Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas. Geopolitically, it includes the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, In ...

, across the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line bet ...

, they are part of India, as the Nicobar district within the union territory of the

Andaman and Nicobar Islands The Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a union territory of India consisting of 572 islands, of which 37 are inhabited, at the junction of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. The territory is about north of Aceh in Indonesia and separated f ...

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international coope ...

has declared the Great Nicobar Island as one of the

World Network of Biosphere Reserves The UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR) covers internationally designated protected areas, known as biosphere reserves Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB) is an intergovernmental scientific program, launched in 1971 by UNESCO ...

.
The International Coordinating Council of UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB), added the following new sites to the World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR) http://www.unesco.org/new/en/media-services/multimedia/photos/mab-2013/india/.

Geography

The Nicobar Islands cover a land area of and had a population of 36,844 during the 2011 Census of India, 2011 Census. They comprise three distinct groups:

Northern Group Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ...

: * Car Nicobar * Battimalv

Central Group Central Group consists of a variety of diverse investments in various corporations in Thailand and abroad, including investments in retail, property development, brand management, hospitality, and food and beverage sectors, and in digital lifes ...

: *

Chowra Chowra is an island in the Andaman and Nicobar islands group of India. It is located to the north of Teressa island and to the south of Battimalv Island in the Indian Ocean. It is also known as Choura, Tatat or Sanenyo. History The island ...

, Chaura or Sanenyo * Teressa or Luroo * Bompuka or Poahat * Katchal * Camorta * Nancowry or Nancowrie *

Trinket A trinket may refer to: * A small showy piece of jewellery, such as a jewel or a ring. * Trinket Island, an island of the Nicobar Islands ** Trinket (village), a village on the island * Trinket snake, common name for '' Elaphe helena'', a species ...

* Laouk or "Isle of Man" *

Tillangchong Tillangchong, also known as Tillanchang, is an island and a village in the Nicobar district of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India. Administration The island belongs to the township of Nancowry of Teressa Taluk. Geography The island is a part ...

Southern Group Southern may refer to: Businesses * China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China * Southern Airways, defunct US airline * Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US * Southern Airways Express, ...

(Sambelong): *

Great Nicobar Great Nicobar is the southernmost and largest of the Nicobar Islands of India, north of Sumatra. History The Nicobar Island has been well known to Indian mariners since the time of the seafaring Cholas https://www.britannica.com/place/Nicob ...

(, largest island of the Nicobars) *

Little Nicobar Little Nicobar (Nicobarese languages, Nicobarese: ''Ong'') is one of the Nicobar Islands, India. History The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami caused extensive damage to this island. Geography Little Nicobar Island's area is . There are ...

Kondul Island Kondul Island is a small island of the Nicobar Islands in India. History It was hit by the 2004 tsunami. After the tsunami the surviving population moved to Great Nicobar. at 2015 2 elders have returned to the island and they renovated the jetty ...

Pulo Milo Pulomilo is an island in the Nicobar district of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India, and home to a village of the same name. It is located just north of Little Nicobar Island. History Impact of 2004 earthquake and tsunami Pulomilo was devas ...

or Pillomilo (Milo Island) * Meroe, Trak, Treis, Menchal, Kabra, Pigeon and Megapod Indira Point () is the southernmost point of Great Nicobar Island and also of India itself, lying about north of

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

Geology

The Nicobar Islands are part of a great island arc created by the collision of the

Indo-Australian Plate The Indo-Australian Plate is a major tectonic plate that includes the continent of Australia and the surrounding ocean and extends northwest to include the Indian subcontinent and the adjacent waters. It was formed by the fusion of the Indian an ...

with

Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelag ...

. The collision lifted the

Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 10 ...

and most of the Indonesian islands, and created a long arc of highlands and islands, which includes the

Arakan Yoma The Arakan Mountains ( my, ရခိုင်ရိုးမ), also known as the Rakhine Yoma, are a mountain range in western Myanmar, between the coast of Rakhine State and the Central Myanmar Basin, in which flows the Irrawaddy River. It is ...

range of

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

, the Andaman and Nicobar islands, and the islands off the west coast of

, including the

Banyak Islands The Banyak Islands (sometimes spelled Banjak Islands) are a group of inhabited islands located between Simeulue and Nias off the western coast of Sumatra in Indonesia's Aceh Province. Surveys of the area approximate around 71 islands and additi ...

and

Mentawai Islands Mentawai may refer to: * Mentawai Islands * Mentawai Strait * Mentawai people * Mentawai language The Mentawai language is an Austronesian language, spoken by the Mentawai people of the Mentawai Islands, West Sumatra, Indonesia. Dialects Ac ...

Climate

The climate is warm and tropical, with temperatures ranging from . Rainfall is heavy due to annual monsoons and measures around each year.

Ecology

The Nicobar Islands are recognised as a distinct terrestrial ecoregion, the Nicobar Islands rain forests, with many

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

species. The vegetation of the Nicobars is typically divided into the coastal mangrove forests and the interior evergreen and deciduous

tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests (TSMF), also known as tropical moist forest, is a subtropical and tropical forest habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Description TSMF is generally found in large, discon ...

. Additionally, several islands contain extensive inland

grassland A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominated by grasses ( Poaceae). However, sedge ( Cyperaceae) and rush ( Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes, like clover, and other herbs. Grasslands occur na ...

s, though these are thought to have resulted from human intervention. As a result of lower sea levels during the

ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gre ...

s, the Andaman Islands were linked to the Southeast Asian mainland, but it is not believed that the Nicobar Islands ever had a land bridge to the continent. Lower sea levels did link the islands to one another: Great Nicobar and Little Nicobar were linked to each other, and Nancowry, Chaura, Katchall, Trinka, Camorta, and the nearby smaller islands were linked to one another as well.

Protected areas

Protected areas include Campbell Bay National Park and Galathea National Park on Great Nicobar. A World Biosphere Reserve was declared on Grand Nicobar by

on May 31, 2013.

Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve The Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve encompasses a large part (some 85%) of the island of Great Nicobar, the largest of the Nicobar Islands in the Indian Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The Nicobars lie in the Bay of Bengal, easter ...

has a total area of . The core area of comprises Cambell Bay and Galathea National parks. A buffer area of includes lands adjacent to and between the two parks. There is also a transitional area of , including .

Population

The islands had a population of 36,842 at the 2011. The indigenous ethnic groups are the Nicobarese and the Shompen. Local languages include Shompen and the languages of the Nicobarese group.

History

Prehistory

The Nicobar Islands are believed to have been inhabited for thousands of years. Six indigenous

Nicobarese languages The Nicobarese languages or Nicobaric languages, form an isolated group of about half a dozen closely related Austroasiatic languages, spoken by most of the inhabitants of the Nicobar Islands of India. They have a total of about 30,000 speakers ...

are spoken on the islands, which are part of the

Austroasiatic language family The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family in Mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China and are th ...

, which includes

Mon Mon, MON or Mon. may refer to: Places * Mon State, a subdivision of Myanmar * Mon, India, a town in Nagaland * Mon district, Nagaland * Mon, Raebareli, a village in Uttar Pradesh, India * Mon, Switzerland, a village in the Canton of Grisons * A ...

, Khmer and Vietnamese languages of

, and the

Munda languages The Munda languages are a group of closely related languages spoken by about nine million people in India and Bangladesh. Historically, they have been called the Kolarian languages. They constitute a branch of the Austroasiatic language family ...

of India. An indigenous tribe living at the southern tip of Great Nicobar, called the Shompen, may be of Mesolithic South-east Asian origin.

Origin of the name

The earliest extant references to the name "Nicobar" is in the

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

Pali Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or '' Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of '' Theravāda'' Buddh ...

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

chronicles, the '' Dipavamsa'' (c. 3rd or 4th century CE) and the '' Mahavamsa'' (c. 4th or 5th century), which state that the children of the followers of the legendary founder of the Sri Lankan Kingdom, Vijaya, landed on ''Naggadipa'' (the island of the children, from the Pali nagga meaning 'naked'). The modern name is likely derived from the

Chola dynasty The Chola dynasty was a Tamil thalassocratic empire of southern India and one of the longest-ruling dynasties in the history of the world. The earliest datable references to the Chola are from inscriptions dated to the 3rd century BC ...

name for the islands, ''Nakkavaram'' (may be referring open/naked land or naked mans land in

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, na ...

) which is inscribed on the

Thanjavur Thanjavur (), also Tanjore, Pletcher 2010, p. 195 is a city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Thanjavur is the 11th biggest city in Tamil Nadu. Thanjavur is an important center of South Indian religion, art, and architecture. Most of the ...

(Tanjore) inscription of 1050 CE. Marco Polo (12th-13th century) also referred to this island as 'Necuverann'. In the 15th century, Great Nicobar Island was recorded as "Cui Lan island" (翠蘭嶼) during the

voyages of Zheng He The Ming treasure voyages were the seven maritime expeditions undertaken by Ming China's treasure fleet between 1405 and 1433. The Yongle Emperor ordered the construction of the treasure fleet in 1403. The grand project resulted in far-reac ...

in the

Mao Kun map Mao Kun map, usually referred to in modern Chinese sources as Zheng He's Navigation Map (), is a set of navigation charts published in the Ming dynasty military treatise ''Wubei Zhi''. The book was compiled by Mao Yuanyi in 1621 and published in ...

of the

Wu Bei Zhi The ''Wubei Zhi'' (; ''Treatise on Armament Technology'' or ''Records of Armaments and Military Provisions''), also commonly known by its Japanese translated name Bubishi, is a military book in Chinese history. It was compiled in 1621 by Mao Y ...

Colonial period

The history of organised European colonisation on the islands began with the Danish East India Company in 1754/56. During this time they were administrated from Tranquebar (in continental Danish India) administrated under the name of Frederiksøerne; missionaries from the

Moravian Church The Moravian Church ( cs, Moravská církev), or the Moravian Brethren, formally the (Latin: "Unity of the Brethren"), is one of the oldest Protestantism, Protestant Christian denomination, denominations in Christianity, dating back to the Bohem ...

Brethren's settlement in Tranquebar attempted a settlement on Nancowry and died in great numbers from disease; the islands were repeatedly abandoned due to outbreaks of

malaria Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. ...

: 1784–1807/09, 1830–1834 and finally from 1848 gradually for good. Between 1778 and 1783, William Bolts attempted to establish an Austrian colony on the islands on the mistaken assumption that Denmark–Norway had abandoned its claims to the islands.

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

made an attempt at buying the Nicobar Islands from Denmark between 1864 and 1865. The Italian Minister of Agriculture and Commerce Luigi Torelli started a negotiation that looked promising, but failed due to the unexpected end of his office and the . The negotiations were interrupted and never brought up again.

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...

's presence in the islands ended formally on 16 October 1868 when it sold the rights to the Nicobar Islands to the UK, which, in 1869, made them part of

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

Second World War

During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, the islands were invaded and occupied by Japan between 1942 and 1945. In May 1945, shelled Japanese positions on the islands. The British regained possession of the islands after the

Surrender of Japan The surrender of the Empire of Japan in World War II was announced by Emperor Hirohito on 15 August and formally signed on 2 September 1945, bringing the war's hostilities to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Na ...

, announced on 15 August and formally signed on 2 September 1945.

Indian state

Together with the Andaman Islands, it became part of India in 1950 and was declared as a union territory of the nation in 1956.

26 December 2004 tsunami

On 26 December 2004, the coast of the Nicobar Islands was devastated by a

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater exp ...

following the

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake An earthquake and a tsunami, known as the Boxing Day Tsunami and, by the scientific community, the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake, occurred at 07:58:53 local time ( UTC+7) on 26 December 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of northern ...

. At least 6,000 people were killed on the

with reports putting the death toll on

Katchal Island Katchal ( Hindi: कत्चल, Nicobarese: तिहन्यु, ''Tihnyu'') is one of the Nicobar Islands, India. History Katchal Island was previously known as Tihanyu. Due to the remote location and lack of exposure with the rest of t ...

alone at 4,600. Several islands were heavily damaged with initial reports of islands broken in two or three pieces and coral reefs moved above water. Teressa Island was said to have been split into two pieces and Trinkat Island into three pieces. Some estimates said that the islands were moved as much as by the earthquake and tilted. Indira Point subsided and the lighthouse there was damaged.

Transportation

* Airport: Car Nicobar CBD/VECX has an airstrip on Car Nicobar Air Force Base of on the South East coast near Malacca but does not offer commercial service.

has a small airstrip of approximately at Campbell Bay/Tenlaa on its East coast. * Seaport: At least one small shipping dock is located in Campbell Bay on the East coast of

. Car Nicobar has a small dock at its Northern tip near Keating Point and Mus.

References

External links

*
WorldStatesmen- India
{{Authority control Nicobar Archipelagoes of the Indian Ocean Archipelagoes of Southeast Asia Islands of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Archipelagoes of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Bay of Bengal British India Danish India Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests Maritime Southeast Asia Regions of India States and territories established in 1950 Pleistocene volcanoes Volcanoes of India Archipelagoes of India 1754 establishments in the Danish colonial empire 1868 establishments in the British Empire