Lakshadweep Islands (Physical Geography)

India’s smallest Union Territory formed a completely different way than its island cousin in the Bay of Bengal. No sunken mountains here — just coral, growing for millions of years.

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Indian Geography · IndGeo0032

Lakshadweep: Built by Coral, Not Rock

Step 1

A fringing reef grows around a volcanic island

Step 2

The island slowly sinks; coral keeps growing upward

Step 3

Only a ring-shaped reef and lagoon remain: an atoll

~32 km²

Total land, India’s smallest UT

Kavaratti

Capital of Lakshadweep

12 atolls

Plus 3 reefs, 5 submerged banks

Same ridge, different islands

Lakshadweep sits on the Laccadive-Chagos Ridge, the same submarine ridge that carries the Maldives further south — a volcanic trace left behind as India drifted over the Reunion hotspot.

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Must Know

• Lakshadweep is a group of coral islands in the Arabian Sea, about 220 miles west of the Malabar Coast.
• It is India’s smallest Union Territory, with a total land area of only about 32 square kilometres.
• The archipelago includes 12 atolls, 3 reefs, and 5 submerged banks, spread across roughly 30,000 square kilometres of sea.
• Of its 36 islands, only 10 are inhabited.
• Kavaratti is Lakshadweep’s capital.

Good to Know

• Lakshadweep’s islands formed from coral growth, not from a sunken mountain range. This is the key difference from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
• Charles Darwin’s subsidence theory explains how coral atolls like these typically form: a fringing reef grows around a volcanic island, the island slowly sinks, and the coral keeps growing upward, eventually leaving only a ring-shaped reef around a lagoon.
• The islands are flat, with no hills or rivers. Their highest point is only about 5 metres above sea level.
• Andrott, the largest island, is just 4.84 kilometres long.

Test Yourself

Please wait…

1. Lakshadweep is India’s smallest Union Territory, with a total land area of roughly how much?

32 square kilometres

320 square kilometres

3,200 square kilometres

32,000 square kilometres

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Great to Know

• Lakshadweep sits on the Laccadive-Chagos Ridge, a submarine ridge that also carries the Maldives and the Chagos Archipelago further south.
• Geologists believe this ridge is the volcanic trace of the same Reunion hotspot that formed the Deccan Traps, left behind as India drifted north over it.
• The ridge formed as India separated first from Madagascar, then later from the Seychelles, tens of millions of years ago.
• This makes Lakshadweep’s low, coral origin a striking contrast to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands’ origin as a partly-submerged mountain range.