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.