Laccadive High Sea

The Laccadives are a chain of coral islands off India's Malabar coast, with shallow lagoons sheltered behind their reefs. Ancient sailors knew the islands, and archaeological finds on Kadamath and Androth attest to contacts across the Indian Ocean. In the early sixteenth century Portuguese interest in coconut fibre brought their intervention; islanders expelled them in 1545. The inhabited islands then came under the ruling family of Kannur, while the northern Amindivi group later passed to Mysore and, in 1799, to Britain.