High density's island Male - 1
(Male, Maldives)
Maldives is a country composed of 1200 islands on Indian Ocean.
The number of inhabited islands is 300, and about 100 islands are developed as a tourist resort, meanwhile locals live in 200 islands of the rest. As an Islamic nation, the government divides severely locals-living islands from resort islands with one resort for one island so that locals would not communicate with tourists. Except the case that a tourist temporally visits a locals island near a resort in island hopping, a tourist needs a special permission under severe check by the administration in order to go to a locals-living island.
Maldives seemed to be an opened resort country, but, in fact, it has a country with peculiar closeness by utilizing the geographic isolation. Nonetheless, it isn’t country where all information is controlled but that they can find homepages of municipality for locals or local news site on internet.
Male island as the capital is the only spot in Maldives where tourists and locals usually contact. Maldives has an impression of a paradise on the ocean. However, do you know that it is one of countries with highest population density in the world, that is, 330,000 persons of population for 298 km2 of land area and 1,100 persons of density per 1 km2 ? The density includes uninhabited islands, so, if calculated for only inhabited islands, the density becomes higher.
Specially, Male island is exceptional. In this island, 81,000 locals live in 1.8 km2 of land area with 2 km length and 1 km width, that is, the density of 45,000 persons per 1 km2. It is one of the cities with highest density in the world. In Tokyo as the capital of Japan, the density based on the inhabited locals is about 20,000 persons per 1 km2 in the central area, and the density in the daytime in the business area is about 35,000 to 70,000 persons per 1 km2. The density of Male island is equal to Tokyo or surpasses it.
When they go to Male island via boat, the island with many tall buildings suddenly appears on the sea as if it were a mirage. Between other islands covered with green, it seems to be a Computer Graphics image.
Transportation
Transportation : 15 minutes by ferry from Male airport island
to Male island.
Link
Accommodations
References
地球の歩き方「モルディブ」（ダイヤモンド・ビッグ社、2005）
東京都統計年鑑（東京都、2005）
Wikipedia
Upload
2007.09 Photos in English version, and photos and text in Japanese version
Update
2018.01 Change of photos and English text
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