Nicobar Islands

The Nicobar Islands form a chain in the eastern Indian Ocean, between the Bay of Bengal and the approaches to Sumatra. Their inhabitants include Nicobarese communities on the coasts and the Shompen of Great Nicobar's interior. The islands lay near sea routes joining India with Southeast Asia. Danish settlers arrived in the mid-eighteenth century and claimed the islands in 1756, but disease and the difficulties of maintaining distant settlements repeatedly frustrated European plans.