Lakshadweep (, , , ,
Mahl: ), formerly known as the
Laccadive, Minicoy, and Aminidivi Islands , is a group of islands in the
Laccadive Sea, off the
south western coast of
India. The archipelago is a
Union Territory and is governed by the
Union Government of India. They were also known as
Laccadive Islands, although geographically this is only the name of the central subgroup of the group.
Lakshadweep comes from "Lakshadweepa", which means "one hundred thousand islands" in Sanskrit as well as many Indian languages like Telugu, Malayalam, Tulu, Kannada, Hindi, Tamil and others. The islands form the smallest
Union Territory of
India: their total surface area is just . The
lagoon area covers about , the
territorial waters area and the
exclusive economic zone area . The region forms a single
Indian district with ten sub divisions.
Kavaratti serves as the capital of the Union Territory and the region comes under the
jurisdiction of
Kerala High Court. The islands are the northernmost of the Lakshadweep-Maldives-Chagos group of islands, which are the tops of a vast undersea mountain range, the
Chagos-Laccadive Ridge.