Chagos Archipelago

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The Chagos Archipelago (, also UK: ) or Chagos Islands is a group of coral atolls, reefs and submerged banks in the central Indian Ocean, at the southern end of the Chagos–Laccadive Ridge. It lies 1,188 nautical miles (2,200 km) north-east of the island of Mauritius and, at its closest point, 269 nautical miles (500 km) south of the Maldives. Five atolls carry islands: Diego Garcia, Peros Banhos, the Salomon Islands, the Egmont Islands and the Great Chagos Bank, described as the world's largest atoll by area; the others are reefs and banks, most of them submerged. The 55 to 59 islands are small and low, with a total land area of about 53 km2 (20 sq mi), more than half of it on Diego Garcia, while the archipelago's 200-nautical-mile zone covers some 640,000 km2 (247,000 sq mi). The archipelago has more than 60,000 square kilometres (23,000 sq mi) of shallow reef and limestone platform, and in 2012 Sheppard and colleagues estimated that it held between a quarter and a half of the Indian Ocean...

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