Known to Greece and Rome.
Greek geographer Claudius Ptolemy records the '1,378 little islands' off the coast of Taprobane. It is the first surviving Mediterranean account of the archipelago — a number startlingly close to the real total.
A full century before Ptolemy, the anonymous Greek author of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (59–62 CE) warned mariners of low, coral-strewn islands south of India — the difficulty of navigation, the danger of the reefs. The Maldives were already a hazard marked on the charts of Red Sea traders.
Ptolemy's Geographia goes further. Writing in Alexandria around 150 CE, he catalogues '1,378 little islands' off the coast of Taprobane (Sri Lanka) — a count that modern surveys, which place the Maldivian island total somewhere between 1,190 and 1,300, find uncomfortably close to the truth.
Opposite Taprobane lie one thousand three hundred and seventy-eight islands, which have been named.
Continue the timeline.
- Claudius Ptolemy, Geography, Book VII (c. 150 CE)
- Britannica — Ptolemy
- Wikipedia — Taprobana
Two thousand years of history — one extraordinary place to experience it.
The atolls in this story are the islands you can stay on today: private-island resorts and overwater villas, planned by a team that works from inside the Maldives.