Port Blair renamed as Sri Vijaya Puram

The Andamans is renowned for its pristine natural beauty, rich marine life, flora and fauna spread around 836 islands, islets and rocks.

The archipelago, located in the east of the Indian mainland geographically, floats in splendid isolation in the Bay of Bengal. Once a hill range extending from Myanmar to Indonesia, these picturesque undulating islands and islets are covered with dense rain-fed, damp and evergreen forests and endless varieties of exotic flora and fauna.

Most of these islands (550) are in the Andaman Group, 28 of which are inhabited. The smaller Nicobars comprise some 22 main islands (10 inhabited). The Andaman and Nicobars are separated by the Ten Degree Channel, which is 150 kilometres wide, according to the Union Territory’s tourism department.

Early archaeological evidence goes back some 2,200 years. However, indications from genetic, cultural and linguistic isolation studies point to habitation going back 30,000 to 60,000 years, well into the Middle Palaeolithic, according to the tourism department.

In the Andaman Islands, the various Andamanese people maintained their separated existence through diversifying into distinct linguistic, cultural and territorial groups.

In the 1850s, the indigenous people of Andamans first came into contact with the outside world

The local people are the Great Andamanese, who collectively represent at least 10 distinct sub groups and languages; the Jarawa: the jungle (or Rutland Jarawa); the Onge; and the Sentinelese (the most isolated of all the groups).

The indigenous people of the Nicobars (unrelated to the Andamanese) have a similarly isolated and lengthy association with the islands.

There are two main groups: the Nicobarese, or Nicobari living throughout many of the islands; and the Shompen, restricted to the interior of Great Nicobar.