South Asia

Maldives Size: 298 square kilometres Population: 530,953

The smallest country in Asia, the Maldives is an archipelago of far-flung, low-lying islands and atolls located in the Indian Ocean. This tropical archipelago comprises 1,190 coral islands, grouped into 26 atolls straddling the equator, about 900 kilometres southwest of Sri Lanka. Climate change is severely threatening the existence of the Maldives as well as diminishing existing human capabilities on these islands. According to the World Bank, with future sea levels projected to increase in the range of 10 to 100 centimetres by the year 2100, the entire country could eventually be submerged.

Sri Lanka Size: 65,610 square kilometres Population: 21.4 million

Sri Lanka, formerly called Ceylon, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean, southeast of the Indian subcontinent, in a strategic location near major Indian Ocean sea lanes. It is the 25th largest island in the world by area. There was once a land connection to the Indian mainland, which is now mostly submerged.