Atlas of the Chagos Islands

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This section holds a short summary of the history of the area of present-day the British Indian Ocean Territory, illustrated with maps, including historical maps of former countries and empires that included present-day the British Indian Ocean Territory.

British Indian Ocean Territory

British Indian Ocean Territory English British Indian Ocean Territory - British Indian Ocean Territory The British Indian Ocean Territory lies roughly in the middle of the Indian Ocean, halfway between Africa and Indonesia, and 1,500 kilometres (930 mi) south of India, near the ► Seychelles and the ► Maldives. It was governed as the British Indian Ocean Territory, but Britain's ownership was disputed by its former inhabitants and by ► Mauritius. The territory comprises the six atolls of the Chagos Archipelago with over 1,000 individual islands. The largest island is the atoll of Diego Garcia, which is the site of a joint naval support facility of the ► United Kingdom and the ► United States. The former indigenous Ilois now live in ► Mauritius, which claims the islands as part of its sovereign territory. On 3rd October 2024, the UK announced it would hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius in a historic move, following negotiations. It includes the tropical atoll of Diego Garcia, used by the US government as a military base for its navy ships and long-range bomber aircraft. The US-UK base will remain on Diego Garcia, and settlement will not be permitted on that island, but Mauritius will be able to resettle the rest of the area. Short name British Indian Ocean Territory Official name British Indian Ocean Territory Status British overseas territory, British since 1815 Location Indian Ocean Capital Diego Garcia Population approximately 4,000 military personnel and contractor inhabitants Area 60 km² Major language(s) English Major religion(s) Christianity More information British Indian Ocean Territory, Geography of the British Indian Ocean Territory, History of the British Indian Ocean Territory and Politics of the British Indian Ocean Territory More images British Indian Ocean Territory - British Indian Ocean Territory (Category).

General maps

Orthographic projection

Map of the British Indian Ocean Territory

Map of Diego Garcia

History maps

The United Kingdom established the British Indian Ocean Territory in 1965 out of the Chagos Archipelago, part of Mauritius, and parts of the Seychelles. The former parts of the Seychelles were returned to Seychelles in 1976. The territory is not self-governing.

Satellite maps

Satellite image of Diego Garcia, looking south

Notes and references

General remarks: The WIKIMEDIA COMMONS Atlas of the World is an organized and commented collection of geographical, political and historical maps available at Wikimedia Commons. The main page is therefore the portal to maps and cartography on Wikimedia. That page contains links to entries by country, continent and by topic as well as general notes and references. Every entry has an introduction section in English. If other languages are native and/or official in an entity, introductions in other languages are added in separate sections. The text of the introduction(s) is based on the content of the Wikipedia encyclopedia. For sources of the introduction see therefore the Wikipedia entries linked to. The same goes for the texts in the history sections. Historical maps are included in the continent, country and dependency entries. The status of various entities is disputed. See the content for the entities concerned. The maps of former countries that are more or less continued by a present-day country or had a territory included in only one or two countries are included in the atlas of the present-day country. For example the Ottoman Empire can be found in the Atlas of Turkey.