Countries

Maldives

The Maldives is a chain of about 1,200 coral islands grouped into atolls, southwest of India and Sri Lanka. It is the lowest-lying country on Earth, Asia's smallest by area, and has been independent from Britain since 1965.

A small bare sandbank barely rising above clear turquoise shallows in the Maldives, under a wide sky

A sandbank in the atolls

Photo: Maciej Kraus, CC BY 2.0

Red for the courage and sacrifice of the nation's heroes, green for peace and prosperity, and the white crescent for Islam. Adopted at independence in 1965.

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