Nicobar Islands

The Nicobar Islands are an island chain in the eastern Indian Ocean, and are part of India.

The Nicobar islands include 22 islands of various sizes, the largest being Great Nicobar. The total land area of the chain is 1841 sq km. The highest point on the Nicobars is Mount Thullier at 670 m. The population of the islands was 42,026 in 2001.

The Nicobars are located southeast of the Indian subcontinent, separated by the Bay of Bengal. They are separated from the Andaman Islands to the north by the 150-km-wide Ten Degree Channel and are 189 km from the Indonesian island of Sumatra to the southeast. The Andaman and Nicobar islands separate the Bay of Bengal from the Andaman Sea.

The islands cluster into three groups. The northern group includes Car Nicobar (127 sq km) and uninhabited Batti Malv (2 sq km). The central group includes Chowra (8 sq km), Teressa (101 sq km), Poahat (13.3 sq.km), Katchal (174 sq km), Kamorta (188 sq km), Nancowry (67 sq km), and Trinket (86 sq km); the Isle of Man and Tillangchong (17 sq km) are uninhabited. Tillangchong is a wildlife sanctuary. The southern group includes Great Nicobar (1045 sq km), Little Nicobar (157 sq km), Kondul (4 sq km) and Pulomilo (1 sq km); the islets of Meroe, Trak, Treis, Menchal, Cubra, Pigeon, and Megapod are uninhabited. Megapod is a wildlife sanctuary.

Administratively the Islands are part of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a Union Territory of India. The capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands territory is Port Blair on South Andaman. The Union Territory is divided into two districts, Andaman and Nicobar. The Indian Government presently forbids non-Indians from visiting the Nicobar Islands.

Table of contents

1 Geology 2 Ecology 3 History

Geology

The Nicobar Islands are part of a great island arc created by the collision of the Indo-Australian Plate with Eurasia. The collision lifted the Himalayas and most of the Indonesian islands, and created a long arc of highlands and islands, which includes the Arakan Yoma range of Myanmar, the Andaman and Nicobar islands, and the islands off the west coast of Sumatra, including the Banyak Islands and Mentawai Islands.

Ecology

The climate is warm and tropical, with temperatures ranging from 71 to 86° F (22 to 30° C). Rainfall is heavy due to annual monsoons and measures around 118 to 130 inches (3000 to 3800 mm) each year. The vegetation of the Nicobars is typically divided into the coastal mangrove forests and the interior evergreen and deciduous Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests. Additionally, several islands contain extensive interior grasslands, though these are thought to result from human intervention.

The Nicobar islands are recognized as a distinct terrestrial ecoregion, the Nicobar Islands rain forests.

As a result of lower sea levels during the Ice Ages, the Andaman Islands were linked to the Southeast Asian mainland, but it is not believed that the Nicobar islands ever had a land bridge to the continent. Lower sea levels did link the islands to one another: Great Nicobar and Little Nicobar were linked to each other, and Nancowry, Chaura, Katchall, Trinka, Camorta, and the nearby smaller islands were linked to one another as well.

History

The Nicobar islands are believed to have been inhabited for over 2000 years. Six indigenous Mon-Khmer languages are spoken on the islands, which are part of the Austroasiatic language family, which includes Mon, Khmer and Vietnamese languages of Southeast Asia, and the Munda languages of India.

In 1991 the population was roughly 65% indigenous Nicobarese and 35% migrants from India and Sri Lanka.