Indian Ocean
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British possessions in the Indian Ocean, underlined in pink.

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A group of thirteen islands off the South West Coast of India. The Portuguese discovered them in 1498 but were ousted by the native people around 1545. They subsequently came under the suzerainty of the Raja of Cannanore. The islands were sequestrated by the British government in 1877 and became part of the Union of India on that country’s independence from Britain in 1947.

A group of 204 islands in the Bay of Bengal on which the government of Bengal sought to establish a penal colony and harbour in 1789. Captain Blair founded the settlement of Port Blair in the same year. By 1796 the settlers were removed owing to the high mortality rate and costs. The native people were very hostile and ships putting in or grounding were attacked and the crews killed, resulting in re-occupation. The subsequent penal colony began to be filled with prisoners from the Indian Mutiny of 1857.
The administration of the islands was given over to the newly independent Union of India in 1947.

Consisting of 19 islands south of the Andamans. The Danes relinquished their claims to the group in favour of Britain in 1869, who put down the piracy of the islanders and established a penal settlement at Nancowry harbour. Administration came from the Andaman Islands, which passed to the Union of India in 1947.

The Maldivians endured frequent raids by the Mopla pirates of the Malabar coast and the Portuguese attempted many times from 1518 onwards to establish themselves on the islands. For this reason they sought and received the protection of the rulers of Ceylon, thereby securing eventual British protection. The hereditary sultan of the islands was tributary to the British government of Ceylon with the islands becoming a protectorate in 1887. Internal self-government came in 1948 with full independence on 26th June 1965. The sultanate was abolished in 1968 and the Maldives became a republic. The island of Gan was an RAF base until the early 1970's.
The Maldives became a full member of the Commonwealth of Nations in 1985.

Until 1976  From 1977

A ship of the English East India Company discovered the islands in 1609, however, it was the French in 1744 who claimed them. During the Revolutionary wars, the British captured them in 1794 but no troops were stationed there. The French capitulated the islands again in 1806 but it was not until 1810 that the Seychelles were occupied by the British to whom they were formally ceded with the Treaty of Paris in 1814. The islands were a dependency of Mauritius until 1903, when along with the islands of Amirantes, Cosmoledo, Aldabra and others they became a separate crown colony.
The Seychelles became an independent republic within the Commonwealth on 29th June 1976.

An uninhabited island discovered by the Portuguese in 1505 who made no settlement. The island was once the home of a large flightless bird, the Dodo, hunted to extinction as a source of food by the crews of passing ships. The Dutch took possession in 1598 and named the island after Count Maurice of Nassau. They introduced a number of slaves and convicts but abandoned the island in 1710, leaving the French to claim it in 1715. The Napoleonic wars saw its capture by the British in 1810 and formally ceded in 1814. The first governor Sir Robert Farquhar did much to abolish the Malagasy slave trade. With the freeing of the slaves, Indian labour was introduced and descendants of the former slaves steadily declined. The islands of Rodriguez, the Farquhar group, Cargodos and the Chagos Archipelago formed the colony of Mauritius. The Chagos islands became a separate dependency in 1965. After the independence of Mauritius on 12th March 1968, Britain retained the Cargodos and the Chagos Islands for strategic purposes.

A group of atolls, the largest of which, Diego Garcia, has one of the finest natural harbours in the world. Occupied by the French in 1791 they passed to Britain with the Seychelles and Mauritius in 1810. The population of the islands numbered about 1100, but they were gradually moved off the islands in the 1970's and 1980's to Mauritius. Diego Garcia is now a strategically important military base for the US and Britain. The archipelago remains a British Dependent Territory.

Discovered by Captain William Keeling of the East India Company in 1609, the 27 small coral islands have been administered as an external territory of Australia since 1955. In 1984 they voted to have closer integration with Australia and from 1992 became subject to the laws of Western Australia.

The island, which takes its name from the day of discovery, was annexed by Britain in June 1888. Administration was passed over to Australia in 1958 and became subject to the laws of Western Australia in 1991. It remains an Australian dependency.
There was an island of the same name in the Pacific Ocean, now called Kirimati.