Why Anyone Lives on Islands Barely Above the Sea | Maldives

The Maldives has no mountains, no rivers and no bedrock. Its highest natural ground stands two point four metres above the sea, and roughly four fifths of the country sits below one metre. There is no soil worth the name and no stone to build with. Every island in the archipelago is a pile of carbonate sand resting on the rim of a drowned volcanic ridge, assembled in a single geological window between five and a half and four thousand years ago. And yet people have lived here continuously for two and a half thousand years — and today more than half a million of them do, packed onto two hundred and ninety-eight square kilometres of ground the ocean itself manufactured. In this documentary, discover how a living reef builds the land it stands on, why half the inhabited islands run out of fresh water every dry season, and what actually decides whether an atoll island grows or disappears. Take a breath. Stay a while. ▶ See More Geography Documentaries:    • Why 170 Million People Live on a Flood Pla...      • Why Anyone Lives in a Desert Where It Neve...   ▶ Subscribe:    / @unforgivingearth4k   #Maldives #Geography #IndianOcean #Documentary #UnforgivingEarth