Nancowry (

Nancowry language Nancowry (Nancoury, Nankwari, ') is a Nicobarese language spoken in the central Nicobar Islands. It is not mutually intelligible with the other Central Nicobarese languages, and is distantly related to Vietnamese and Khmer, Phonology Consonan ...

: ''Mūöt'',

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

: नन्कोव्री ''Nankovrī'') is an island in the central part of the

Nicobar Islands The Nicobar Islands are an archipelagic island chain in the eastern Indian Ocean. They are located in Southeast Asia, northwest of Aceh on Sumatra, and separated from Thailand to the east by the Andaman Sea. Located southeast of the Indian s ...

chain, located in the northeast

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 th ...

between the

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 between ...

and the

Andaman Sea The Andaman Sea (historically also known as the Burma Sea) is a marginal sea of the northeastern Indian Ocean bounded by the coastlines of Myanmar and Thailand along the Gulf of Martaban and west side of the Malay Peninsula, and separated from ...

History

In 1755, the government of

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark ...

formally claimed sovereignty over Nicobars, under the name of ''

Frederiksøerne The Nicobar Islands are an archipelagic island chain in the eastern Indian Ocean. They are located in Southeast Asia, northwest of Aceh on Sumatra, and separated from Thailand to the east by the Andaman Sea. Located southeast of the India ...

'' ("Frederik Islands") and encouraged a mission established by the

Moravian Brethren The Moravian Church ( cs, Moravská církev), or the Moravian Brethren, formally the (Latin: "Unity of the Brethren"), is one of the oldest Protestantism, Protestant Christian denomination, denominations in Christianity, dating back to the Bohem ...

Herrnhut Herrnhut ( Sorbian: ''Ochranow''; cs, Ochranov) is an Upper Lusatian town in the Görlitz district in Saxony, Germany, known for the community of the Moravian Church established by Nicolas Ludwig, Count von Zinzendorf in 1722. Geography It is ...

. The Danes established a short-lived colony on the island which they named ''Ny Sjælland'' ("New

Zealand Zealand ( da, Sjælland ) at 7,031 km2 is the largest and most populous island in Denmark proper (thus excluding Greenland and Disko Island, which are larger in size). Zealand had a population of 2,319,705 on 1 January 2020. It is the 1 ...

"). Along with

Kamorta Island Kamorta Island is an island in the Nicobar Islands chain of India, located in the northeast Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. Facilities INS Kardip is a naval forward operating base of the joint-services Andaman and Nic ...

, which lies just to the north, Nancowry Island forms the "magnificent land-locked" Nancowry Harbour, used by European sailors since at least the 17th century and described as "one of the safest natural harbours in the world"

. The harbour was apparently used as a base for

piracy Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...

; in 1868, the British Navy entered the harbour in some force, destroying suspected pirate ships.

2004 tsunami

The island, like many others in the Nicobar and Andaman islands, was severely affected by tsunamis generated by the

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake An earthquake and a tsunami, known as the Boxing Day Tsunami and, by the scientific community, the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake, occurred at 07:58:53 local time (UTC+7) on 26 December 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of northern Suma ...

. According to reports from the Andaman and Nicobar Inspector General of Police, S.B. Deol, the Nancowry group of islands were among the worst-hit islands in the chain, with thousands missing and presumed dead. Post-tsunami satellite photos, and government situation reports indicate that while portions of Nancowry Island were affected, the adjoining islands of Katchall and Kamorta were more severely overrun. As of January 18, 2005, the government reported only 1 dead and 3 missing from Nancowry island, but 51 dead and 387 missing from Kamorta, and 345 dead and 4310 missing from Katchall.

Demography

As of the 2011 Indian census, there are 1019 persons living on Nancowry island.

Geography

Nancowry Island has an area of 47 km², and located 160 km south-southeast of

Car Nicobar Car Nicobar ( in Car language) is the northernmost of the Nicobar Islands. It is also one of three local administrative divisions of the Indian district of Nicobar, part of the Indian union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Annual rai ...

, the northernmost Nicobar island. Nancowry, like the Nicobar islands generally, is under the sovereignty of the nation of

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 ...

. It is also part of the Nicobar and Andaman Tribal Reserve Area, which bars non-native people from visiting or conducting business on the island without permission in hopes of preserving the threatened native communities that live there.

Climate

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, Ca ...

of Nancowry of

Nancowry tehsil Nancowry Taluk (or Tehsil) is one of 7 local administrative divisions of the Indian district of Nicobar, part of the Indian union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It is a division known locally as a ''tehsil'', roughly equivalent to a c ...

Image gallery

File:Map of Nicobar Islands-en.png, Map File: Village of Mala.jpg, Malacca village 1870 File: The British Occupation of the Nicobar Islands, 1945 SE5441.jpg,

Rajput Regiment The Rajput Regiment is one of the oldest infantry regiments of the Indian Army, tracing its origins back to 1778 with the raising of the 24th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry. The 1st battalion of the regiment was formed in 1798. After Worl ...

on patrol during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

References

Space Shuttle Photo of Nancowry and surrounding islands (courtesy Earth Sciences and Image Analysis, NASA-Johnson Space Center).
Nancowry is the island on the bottom right. Adjoining it, with Nancowry Harbour between, is Camorta (Kamorta) Is. to the north (up) and Katchall Is. to the west (left).
Government of the Andaman and Nicobar Union Territory(tsunami damage page)
*

Includes various close-up line maps of the Nancowry group. * ttps://web.archive.org/web/20050208190633/http://www.crisp.nus.edu.sg/tsunami/Katchall_20041228_20040710/Katchall_20041228_20040710.html Before-and-after satellite photos of Katchall island* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nancowry Islands of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Nicobar district Nicobar Islands