Republic of the Maldives
Asia del Sur
Turquoise · Coral · Idyllic
The Maldives is the world's lowest-lying country, with an average ground elevation of just 1.5 m above sea level — making it the nation most immediately threatened by rising sea levels due to climate change.
Más allá de la capital, las principales ciudades son Addu City, Fuvahmulah — cada una un centro de cultura regional, economía e historia. Malé is the world's most densely populated island city — 220,000 people on 5.8 square kilometres of land that averages 1.5 metres above sea level — a capital so space-constrained that the government created Hulhumalé, an artificial island, to accommodate population overflow, in a country where the highest natural point is 2.4 metres above sea level and the entire national territory faces submergence from sea level rise.
El idioma oficial es Dhivehi, que refleja el patrimonio cultural del país y lo conecta con una amplia comunidad internacional. Internacionalmente, las Maldivas se contactan mediante el código +960. Maldivians maintain a distinct Dhivehi language and Islamic identity on 200 inhabited atolls scattered across 90,000 square kilometres of Indian Ocean — a maritime civilisation that converted from Buddhism to Islam in the 12th century and whose seafaring tradition produced the dhoni boat design still used for local transport in waters that no road could serve.
El tráfico rodado circula por la izquierda, en consonancia con la convención de
La vida económica y cotidiana se rige por la zona horaria de UTC+05:00, alineando el país con sus vecinos regionales.
Garudhiya — a clear fish broth made from smoked skipjack tuna (maldive fish), eaten with rice, lime, chilli, and onion — is the Maldivian daily meal whose simplicity reflects an island economy where the sea is everything and the maldive fish (tuna dried and cured) is both daily sustenance and the country's most important export commodity.
Football and volleyball are Maldives's primary sports in a country where traditional boduberu drum and dance performances function as athletic-competitive cultural events, while the sport of bashi (similar to tennis played with the hand on a field) represents an indigenous game that women traditionally played on the islands before modern imported sports arrived.
Maldives sits atop one of the world's largest coral reef systems — over 2,000 coral species in waters that have experienced severe bleaching events during the 1998 El Niño and subsequent warming — while the underwater wall dives at Banana Reef and Maaya Thila are consistently ranked among the world's finest dive sites, making Maldives the country whose tourist economy is most directly coupled to the health of a marine ecosystem.