Why Time Is Running Out Across the Maldives’ Lovely Little Islands

       Global tourism brought a modern economy to the country’s thousand islands. For many Maldivians, the teeming capital beckons.

       Teenagers gathering to watch the sun set in Nolhivaranfaru, a remote island in the Maldives.

       Why Time Is Running Out Across the Maldives’ Lovely Little Islands

       Global tourism brought a modern economy to the country’s thousand islands. For many Maldivians, the teeming capital beckons.

       Teenagers gathering to watch the sun set in Nolhivaranfaru, a remote island in the Maldives.Credit...

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       By Alex Travelli and Maahil Mohamed

       Photographs by Elke Scholiers

       Reporting from Malé, its nearby islands and Nolhivaranfaru in the Maldives

       April 6, 2024

       To live in the Maldives is to live in one of two worlds. Either you belong to the capital — Malé, a micro-Manhattan in the Indian Ocean — or you are out in “the islands,” among the quietest and most remote villages this side of the Arctic tundra.

       It is in these places — far from the archipelago’s walled-garden resort atolls, where no Maldivians actually dwell — that the country is picking between two visions of its future, like much of the rest of Asia, but more so.

       The outer islands are steadily depopulating, as the appeal of making a life through tuna fishing and coconut farming along their crushed-coral seashores shrinks. The splendid isolation may be what attracts visitors, but it seems incompatible with islanders’ aspirations in a nation modernized by global tourism.

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       As Maldivians give up on island life, the government feels compelled to keep building up Malé, the country’s one real city. But Malé is already pressed up hard against the limits of human habitation. By some measures, it is the most densely populated island on earth, with over a third of the country’s 520,000 people on a landmass that can be crossed by foot in about 20 minutes.

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       Bridges connect the capital, Malé, to artificial islands that are packed with housing projects.

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       By some measures, Malé is the most densely populated island on earth.

       The map locates the Maldives, islands off the southwest coast of India. It locates the islands of Nolhivaranfaru and Maavaidhoo, north of Malé, the capital. It also shows the islands of Hulhumalé and Villingili near Malé, and the city of Kochi in southern India.

       CHINA

       PAKISTAN

       NEPAL

       New Delhi

       INDIA

       Arabian

       Sea

       Bay of Bengal

       Kochi

       Nolhivaranfaru

       SRI

       LANKA

       Maavaidhoo

       Malé

       MALDIVEs

       Hulhumalé

       Malé

       Villingili

       300 MILES

       By The New York Times

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       Alex Travelli is a correspondent for The Times based in New Delhi, covering business and economic matters in India and the rest of South Asia. He previously worked as an editor and correspondent for The Economist. More about Alex Travelli

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