Maldives
A scattering of low coral atolls in the Indian Ocean
The Maldives is the lowest-lying country on Earth, an archipelago of roughly 1,200 coral islands grouped into atolls strung across the equator in the Indian Ocean. With a national average elevation barely above the waves, it has become the world's emblem of the climate crisis, a paradise of turquoise lagoons and white sand whose very existence is threatened by rising seas. Tourism built on luxury resorts and diving among vivid reefs underpins its economy, and a small Muslim nation of Dhivehi speakers governs this fragile, beautiful sprawl of ocean and reef.
The islands are tiny, flat, and made of coral, none rising more than a few meters above sea level, and the highest natural point is only about 5 meters. They sit atop a chain of submarine volcanic ridges, forming a double row of atolls that enclose sheltered lagoons. The surrounding reefs teem with marine life, from reef sharks to manta rays, making the country a premier destination for divers. The climate is tropical, warm and humid year-round, shaped by the monsoon, and the nation is acutely exposed to storm surges, erosion, and the long-term rise of the sea.
Settled more than two thousand years ago and converted to Islam in the twelfth century, the Maldives was a sultanate that traded across the Indian Ocean and briefly fell under Portuguese and then British protection before independence in 1965. The economy was transformed from the 1970s by the rise of upscale tourism, which now sits alongside fishing as the mainstay. Politics have been turbulent, swinging between authoritarian rule and democratic reform. Above all, the country has become a global advocate on climate change, its leaders warning that without action their homeland could become uninhabitable within decades.