Due to its size, the Chagos is one of the largest archipelagos in the world.
The Indian ocean is full of wonders and one of them is the Chagos archipelago.
Although this area is protected and belongs to the UK, it is now watch over the American soldiers. Rent America was given to the only inhabited island of the archipelago – Diego Garcia, and the entire local population was forced to move.
In the XVI century the Portuguese discovered the archipelago in the Indian ocean during their travels, and then begins his amazing story, though the mariners of Portugal, probably was not the first who discovered this group of Islands.
Cartographers believe that the allusion to the Islands of the Chagos can be seen on the maps of Vasco da Gama, made in the XV century. Officially, the mention of the island appeared only a century later in the inventories of Portuguese sailors.
However, for the first time about the rights of ownership to the Islands, said the French in the early eighteenth century, and by the end of the century, the British issued the official documents and made the island their colony.
Even a few decades between England and France continued the struggle for the archipelago, the French were going to grow up on the Islands ‘ sugar cane. But in the end England won and began to possess the land. Now the coral Islands of the Chagos belong to the UK.
The ensemble consists of 65 small Islands, located in the geographical center of the Indian ocean. From the shores of India it is 1,500 kilometers from the African coast of the island removed at 3400 miles, and the Maldives are closest is 500 miles.
Now the legality of the reserve is in question, but originally, this area was designed to preserve coral reefs and populations of rare animals of the Indian ocean, including sharks, sea turtles, scombridae, fish-sailing, flying fish, cetaceans, mammals and many others.
In addition to the unique inhabitants of the ocean, here there are many birds that need human protection. Flycatchers, cattle partridge, frigates, albatrosses, Seychelles scoops – all these birds belong to the endemic species that are not found in other places on our planet.
