The Maldives: history and heritage

About The Maldives: history and heritage

By the ULTIMATE Maldives Editorial Team

Regional Editor, South Asia: Tara de la Motte

The Maldives is a nation built of coral: 26 atolls and around 1,190 islands strung across the equator. Seafarers from South Asia settled them more than two thousand years ago; the islands were Buddhist, then from the twelfth century a Muslim sultanate that controlled one of the richest routes of the Indian Ocean. Their language, Dhivehi, and their coral-stone mosques are found nowhere else.

At a glance

Population: 515,132 (Maldives Bureau of Statistics, Population and Housing Census 2022), of whom 382,639 are Maldivians and 132,493 resident foreigners; about four in ten live in the Greater Malé area.

Islands: 26 natural atolls and around 1,190 coral islands, about 200 of them inhabited.

A nation built of coral, with a language and a craft of coral-stone mosques found nowhere else.

Language: Dhivehi, written in the Thaana script, an Indo-Aryan language related to Sinhala.

Shaped by: early South Asian seafarers, Buddhism, conversion to Islam (1153), the sultanates, a brief Portuguese occupation (1558–1573), British protection (1887–1965) and independence on 26 July 1965.

The first islanders

Seafarers from southern India and Sri Lanka settled the atolls more than two thousand years ago. Cowrie shells from the Maldives were used as currency across Asia and Africa, and the islands sat on the trade routes between Arabia, India and the East.

A Buddhist past

For more than a thousand years the islands were largely Buddhist. The ruins of stupas and monasteries have been found on many atolls, and carved coral and stone from that period are kept in the National Museum in Malé.

Islam and the sultans

By tradition the islands converted to Islam in 1153, and a sultanate ruled them for most of the next eight centuries. The Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta served as a judge here in the 1340s and described island life. The Old Friday Mosque in Malé, Hukuru Miskiy, built in 1658 of carved coral stone, is a masterpiece of the craft.

The Portuguese expelled

The Portuguese occupied Malé from 1558, and in 1573 Muhammad Thakurufaanu and his companions drove them out, a victory still celebrated as National Day.

Independence

The Maldives became a British protectorate in 1887, keeping its own government, and became fully independent on 26 July 1965. Tourism began with the first resorts in 1972. Today the islands lead efforts in marine conservation and in raising awareness of rising seas.

Our advice: spend half a day in Malé to see the Old Friday Mosque, the fish market and the National Museum, and choose a resort or guesthouse island that supports reef and turtle conservation.

Sources

Population: Maldives Bureau of Statistics, Population and Housing Census 2022. History: National Museum of the Maldives; Ministry of Tourism, Maldives; UNESCO (Coral Stone Mosques of the Maldives, Tentative List); Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Maldives”.

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