The Coco Islands ( my, ကိုကိုးကျွန်း) are a small group of islands in the northeastern

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line betwee ...

. They are part of the

Yangon Region Yangon Region(, ; formerly Rangoon Division and Yangon Division) is an administrative region of Myanmar. Located in the heart of Lower Myanmar, the division is bordered by Bago Region to the north and east, the Gulf of Martaban to the south, ...

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

. The islands are located south of the city of

Yangon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

. Coco Island group consists of 5 islands, 4 islands on Great Coco Reef and another raicoco island on the Little Coco Reef. To the north of this island group lies Preparis Island also belonging to

, and to the south lies the

Landfall Island Landfall Island is the northernmost island of the Indian union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It belongs to the territory's North and Middle Andaman administrative district. The island lies north of Port Blair, and is situated sout ...

belonging to

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

History

The islands took their current name from Portuguese sailors in the 16th century, "coco" being the Portuguese word for the coconut. The Andaman Islands were taken over by the English East India Company in the 18th century. In the 19th century, the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

government in India established a

penal colony A penal colony or exile colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general population by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory. Although the term can be used to refer to ...

in the

Andamans The Andaman Islands () are an archipelago in the northeastern Indian Ocean about southwest off the coasts of Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Region. Together with the Nicobar Islands to their south, the Andamans serve as a maritime boundary between the ...

, and the Coco Islands were a source of food for it (mainly coconuts). In 1959, General Ne Win's interim military administration established a penal colony on Great Coco Island. After Ne Win’s 1962 coup d'état and subsequent installation of a military government, the prison gained the reputation of being a Burmese " Devil’s Island". In 1969, it was enlarged to house an increased number of political prisoners. After a strike, all prisoners on the island were transferred to Rangoon’s

Insein Prison Insein Prison ( my, အင်းစိန်ထောင်) is located in Yangon Division, near Yangon (Rangoon), the old capital of Myanmar (formerly Burma). From 1988 to 2011 it was run by the military junta of Myanmar, named the State Law an ...

in 1971. After the closing of the penal colony, the facilities on Great Coco Island were transferred to the

Burmese Navy The Myanmar Navy ( my, တပ်မတော် (ရေ); ) is the naval warfare branch of the armed forces of Myanmar. With 24,000 personnel on duty, the navy operates more than 150 vessels. Prior to 1988, the navy was small, and its role in c ...

. Burmese writer

Mya Than Tint Mya Than Tint ( ; 23 May 1929 – 18 February 1998) was a five-time Myanmar National Literature Award winning Burmese writer and translator. Biography Born Mya Than on 23 May 1929 in Myaing, Pakokku Township, Magway Division, Myanmar, he was ...

was among the people incarcerated at the Great Coco Island penal colony. The Coco Islands were allegedly leased to the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

from 1994. The governments of Burma and the People's Republic of China deny this, and many members of the Burmese military categorically deny any agreement at all.Selth, Andrew
"Chinese Whispers: The Great Coco Island Mystery"
, ''Irrawaddy BurmaNet News'', 9 January 2007.

Military

China supposedly established a

SIGINT Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of '' signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ...

intelligence gathering station on Great Coco Island in 1992 to monitor Indian naval activity in the

Andaman and Nicobar Islands The Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a union territory of India consisting of 572 islands, of which 37 are inhabited, at the junction of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. The territory is about north of Aceh in Indonesia and separated f ...

. The station is also said to allow China to monitor the movement of other navies and ships throughout the eastern

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...

, especially in the crucial point for shipping routes between the Bay of Bengal and the

Strait of Malacca The Strait of Malacca is a narrow stretch of water, 500 mi (800 km) long and from 40 to 155 mi (65–250 km) wide, between the Malay Peninsula (Peninsular Malaysia) to the northeast and the Indonesian island of Sumatra to the southwest, connec ...

. It may also be used to monitor activities at the launch site of the Indian Space Research Organisation at Sriharikota and the

Defence Research and Development Organisation The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) (IAST: ''Raksā Anūsandhān Evam Vikās Sangaṭhan'') is the premier agency under the Department of Defence Research and Development in Ministry of Defence of the Government of India, ...

at Chandipur-on-sea. In a 2008 report, it's claimed that the

Chinese Army The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the principal military force of the People's Republic of China and the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The PLA consists of five service branches: the Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, ...

has future plans of building a maritime base on Little Coco Island. The alleged existence of the Chinese base has been questioned. In 1998, the United States stated that it had not detected any significant Chinese activity in Burma. In October 2005, India’s Chief of Naval Staff was quoted as saying that India had "firm information that there is no listening post, radar or surveillance station belonging to the Chinese on Coco Islands". In 2014, Air Marshal P. K. Roy, commander-in-chief of India's

Andaman and Nicobar Command The Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC) is the first and only tri-service theater command of the Indian Armed Forces, based at Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a Union Territory of India. It was created in 2001 to safeguard India ...

, stated that "China has been developing a runway for civilian purposes. There are no reports of the presence of Chinese per se. The situation is not alarming". He added that there was only some civilian infrastructural developments, which were not a threat to India.

Geography

The

lies to the west of the islands, and the Andaman Sea lies to the east. The Burmese mainland is to the north. The island of

Preparis Preparis Island is an island which is part of the Yangon Region of Myanmar. Together, with the other Andaman Islands (the majority of which are a union territory of India), it marks the boundary between the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. T ...

lies to the north-northeast of the Coco Islands. The Coco Islands consist of three main islands, namely Great Coco Island and the smaller Little Coco Island, separated by the Alexandra Channel, as well as Table Island, a third small island located near Great Coco Island. Geographically, they are a part of the

archipelago (most of which belongs to

) and are separated from

, the northernmost island in the Indian part of the archipelago, by the wide Coco Channel.

Great Coco reef

This reef has four islands, from north to south those are Slipper Island, Table Island, Great Coco Island and Jerry Island.

Great Coco Island

The Coco Islands consist of three main islands: ''Great Coco Island'' and the smaller ''Little Coco Island'' are separated by the ''Alexandra Channel'', as well as a third small island located near Great Coco Island is ''Table Island''. Great Coco Island () is long and wide. Many

green turtle The green sea turtle (''Chelonia mydas''), also known as the green turtle, black (sea) turtle or Pacific green turtle, is a species of large sea turtle of the family Cheloniidae. It is the only species in the genus ''Chelonia''. Its range exten ...

s nest on the beaches of the Island. A series of research programs on marine turtle conservation have been conducted by

Ministry of Livestock, Fisheries and Rural Development The Ministry of Livestock, Fisheries and Rural Development ( my, ) is a ministry in the Burmese government responsible for the country's livestock and fishery sectors. The development of livestock and fisheries sectors of the Republic of the ...

. Data collection on tissue samples of green turtles for population genetic and tagging studies was conducted at Great Coco Island in March and April, 2006. Previously, Great Coco Island had never been surveyed for marine turtle conservation due to its remote location. The survey found an estimated 150

sea turtle Sea turtles (superfamily Chelonioidea), sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira. The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerhe ...

s nesting along with 95,000 hatchlings and juveniles.

Table Island

The axe head-shaped Table Island is located to the north of Great Coco Island. The island is long and wide. The island previously housed a lighthouse in its southwestern portion, but it is now uninhabited. The lighthouse was built is 1867, with a focal plane of 59 m. It has a lantern and gallery, painted with red and white horizontal bands. Two 1-story brick keeper's houses and other light station buildings lie around the lighthouse. The island is accessible by boat. One of the former island keepers was brutally murdered by his boss.

Slipper Island

Slipper Island is a long narrow islet located off the northwestern point of Table Island, separated from it by a narrow

channel Channel, channels, channeling, etc., may refer to: Geography * Channel (geography), in physical geography, a landform consisting of the outline (banks) of the path of a narrow body of water. Australia * Channel Country, region of outback Austral ...

Jerry Island

Jerry Island is a long and wide islet located off the southern point of Great Coco Island, which can be reached from the Great Coco Island just by walking on the

sandbar In oceanography, geomorphology, and geoscience, a shoal is a natural submerged ridge, bank, or bar that consists of, or is covered by, sand or other unconsolidated material and rises from the bed of a body of water to near the surface. ...

connecting these two islands.

Little Coco Reef

This reef has only one island.

Little Coco Island

Little Coco Island lies to the southwest of Great Coco Island. It is long from north to south and wide from east to west. This island is on a separate reef, and rest of the four islands (including Table Island) are on the same reef as Coco Island. This is the southernmost Island belonging to Myanmar in Andaman and Nicobar sea, the next island to the south is

belonging to India.

General information

Demography

There are more than 200 houses on Great Coco Island, and its total population is around a thousand people. A large water catchment reservoir is able to support the island's population. There is a

naval base A naval base, navy base, or military port is a military base, where warships and naval ships are docked when they have no mission at sea or need to restock. Ships may also undergo repairs. Some naval bases are temporary homes to aircraft that u ...

on the islands, which belongs to the 28th unit of the

Myanmar Navy The Myanmar Navy ( my, တပ်မတော် (ရေ); ) is the naval warfare branch of the armed forces of Myanmar. With 24,000 personnel on duty, the navy operates more than 150 vessels. Prior to 1988, the navy was small, and its role in c ...

. It is home to some 200 soldiers and their families.

Climate

The Coco Islands have a

tropical monsoon climate An area of tropical monsoon climate (occasionally known as a sub-equatorial, tropical wet climate or a tropical monsoon and trade-wind littoral climate) is a tropical climate sub-type that corresponds to the Köppen climate classification category ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

''Am''). Temperatures are very warm throughout the year. There is a winter dry season from December to March and a summer wet season from April to November. Heavy rain has been known in September, such as of rain.

Administration

The island belongs to the

township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, C ...

of Cocokyun. The township had a corruption scandal in the Myanmar general election of 2015. Ballots were filled in Yangon without being shipped, resulting in a high turnout and subsequent police investigation.

Transportation

The Coco Island Airport ( ICAO code: VYCI) is at the north of Great Coco Island. It follows the north–south axis near the island's village. The airport was recently renovated. Newspapers claim the airport has some use as a

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

Air Force base.

Flora and fauna

The islands offer the opportunity to see rare reptiles, birds, and mammals that are unique to the Coco Islands.

Image gallery

File:Andaman nicobar 76.jpg, Map of the

, with the Coco Islands in the extreme north File:Cocos-Islands-Myanmar-map.jpg, Map of the Coco Islands group, Great Coco Island in north and Little Coco Island in southwest File:Table-Island-map.jpg, Map of Table Island in the middle and Slipper Island to the northwest File:Great-Coco-map.jpg, Map of Great Coco Island with tiny Jerry Island at the bottom File:Little-Coco-map.jpg, Map of Little Coco Island, it is southernmost island of Myanmar

References

Burma's mythical islandsOfficial Nautical Chart of Coco IslandsIndian Ocean – South-East Asian Marine Turtle Memorandum of UnderstandingGoogle Earth map of Chinese facilities at Great Coco Island
{{DEFAULTSORT:Coco Islands Populated places in Myanmar Islands of Myanmar Islands of the Indian Ocean