The British Indian Ocean Territory or Chagos Islands is an overseas territory of the United Kingdom situated in the Indian Ocean, halfway between Africa and Indonesia. The territory comprises the six atolls of the Chagos Archipelago with over 1,000 individual islands having a total land area of 60 square kilometres . The largest island is Diego Garcia , the site of a joint military facility of the United Kingdom and the United States. Following the eviction of the native population in the 1960s, the only inhabitants are US and British military personnel and associated contractors, who... collectively number around 4,000 . Maldivian mariners knew the Chagos Islands well. In Maldivian lore they are known as Fōlhavahi or Hollhavai . According to Southern Maldivian oral tradition, traders and fishermen were occasionally lost at sea and got stranded in one of the islands of the Chagos.
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