Suvadives
As Suvadives , also Suvadiva Islands or Suvadiva Archipelago , dhivehi : ސުވައިދީބު Suvadinmathi , a region in the south of the Maldives is referred to. It is a collective name for the three southernmost atolls of the Maldives , Huvadhu , Fuvahmulah and Addu .
The name of the region is derived from Huvadhu Atoll, which is the second largest atoll in the Maldives and was formerly known as Suvadiva Atoll . It appeared on historical nautical charts as well as Suadou (French) and Suvadina (Dutch).
The Suvadives are located directly on the equator and are spatially separated from the rest of the Maldives by the One and Half Degree Channel ( Huvadhu Kandu ). The Equatorial Channel ( Addu Kandu ), in which the small Fuvammulah Atoll is located, runs between Huvadhu and Addu .
Due to the great distance to the capital Malé , the Maldivian sultan had in the past only a loose and largely purely formal supremacy over the Suvadives; the islands were relatively independent. Since One and Half Degree and Equatorial Channels were important as part of the sea route from Arabia to India, the Suvadiva Islands gained some importance as a stopover for merchant ships.
During the Second World War , the British established a naval base on Gan (Atoll Addu) , which was re-occupied by the Royal Air Force from 1957 . The conflict over the expansion of this base and various new laws by the Maldivian government led to an uprising in the Suvadives in 1959, which, as the Republic of the United Suvadiva Islands, separated from the sultanate with the toleration of the British and remained independent until 1963.
Web links
literature
- Wolfgang Därr : Maldives, Dumont
Coordinates: 0 ° 0 ′ N , 73 ° 9 ′ E