Maldives

Settled from southern India and Sri Lanka, with later Arab, African, and Southeast Asian influence from the Indian Ocean trade, the Maldives was Buddhist for more than a thousand years before converting to Islam in 1153 — an event still commemorated as a national holiday. The islands were then a sultanate, briefly and brutally occupied by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century (their expulsion is the other founding holiday), and loosely overseen by the Dutch and then the British, becoming a British protectorate from 1887 until independence in 1965.

The sultanate was abolished in 1968 and replaced by a republic. Maumoon Abdul Gayoom ruled as president for thirty years, launching luxury tourism but also surviving coup attempts and ruling autocratically. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami washed over almost the entire country, causing huge damage. A democratic opening in 2008 brought the activist Mohamed Nasheed to office — famous for holding an underwater cabinet meeting to dramatise sea-level rise — before he was forced out in 2012 and later jailed.

Politics since has swung between camps more aligned with India and with China, with heavy Chinese infrastructure lending, and, since Mohamed Muizzu's 2023 election on an "India Out" platform, a cooler relationship with New Delhi. The economy is overwhelmingly tourism, with pole-and-line tuna fishing the traditional second pillar, and the country is rich by regional standards but exposed to tourism shocks, import dependence, external debt, and, above all, the rising ocean.

The Maldives is officially entirely Sunni Muslim — Islam is a requirement of citizenship, the open practice of other religions is not permitted, and importing alcohol, pork, and non-Islamic religious items is banned. This produces the country's dual character: on the resort islands, alcohol, swimwear, spa treatments, and pork are all available in a sealed bubble; on inhabited islands, visitors dress modestly, alcohol is unavailable, and the rhythm of prayer and Ramadan shapes the day.

Traditional Maldivian culture is that of a seafaring, fishing people: the dhoni, a curved wooden boat, is a national symbol; bodu beru, big-drum music and dance of African-influenced rhythm, is performed at celebrations; and lacquer work, coir rope, and reed mats are the old crafts. Extended-family and island-community ties are strong.

The overwhelming concentration of the population on tiny Malé, one of the most densely populated cities on Earth, sits alongside a scatter of small island communities where a few hundred people live around a mosque, a school, a harbour, and a football pitch.

Around a third of Maldivians live on Malé and the linked reclaimed island of Hulhumalé, in a packed high-rise capital where housing, congestion, and the cost of imported everything are the daily grind. The rest live on inhabited islands across the 26 atolls, and a large migrant workforce, mostly Bangladeshi, staffs construction and the resorts.

The economy is tourism, directly and indirectly, plus fishing and a little agriculture. Almost all food and fuel is shipped in, external debt is high, and the government has been building the raised artificial island of Hulhumalé — and floating out proposals for a floating city — as insurance against the sea.

Daily life on the local islands moves with the tides, the fishing boats, the five prayers, and the ferry timetable; on Malé it is more urban, wage-based, and crowded.

Maldivian cooking is built on tuna, coconut, and rice, with plenty of chilli. The staple sauce is garudhiya, a clear tuna broth served over rice with lime, chilli, and onion. Mas huni — shredded smoked tuna with grated coconut, onion, and chilli, eaten with the flatbread roshi — is the classic breakfast.

Rihaakuru, a thick brown tuna paste, flavours many dishes; "short eats" (hedhika) — fried fish rolls (bajiya), gulha dumplings, and masroshi — fill the tea houses; and bambukeyluboakibaa, a breadfruit-and-coconut cake, is a traditional sweet.

On resort islands you eat international buffet and à la carte food, often excellent, with imported everything and full bars. On local islands, the tea house (sai hotaa) and a few simple cafés serve Maldivian and South Asian food, sweet milk tea, and fresh juices — no alcohol.

The draw is the sea. The Maldives has some of the best reef snorkelling and diving in the world — soft corals, reef sharks, turtles, and huge aggregations of manta rays and whale sharks, with Hanifaru Bay in the UNESCO-listed Baa Atoll and the South Ari Atoll protected area the famous feeding sites — plus channel and pinnacle dives and a scatter of reef surf breaks.

Accommodation itself is the experience: overwater villas, castaway-beach seclusion, and picnic trips to bare sandbanks that appear and vanish with the tide, at every price point from mid-range guesthouse to the world's most expensive hotels. Since local-island tourism opened up, independent travellers base themselves in villages like Maafushi, Dhigurah, and Thulusdhoo and take day trips by shared boat.

Malé itself is worth a few hours: the coral-stone Old Friday Mosque with its intricate lacquer and carving, the fish market, the tsunami monument, and the sheer spectacle of a whole capital on one small island. The one slow-moving but genuine threat behind it all is the rising sea, around which the entire country is now organised.