Feyhendhoo - is the largest island of the Holhidhe Atoll, a small coral ring in the southwestern Foalhavahi
Fyhendhoo is the largest island of the Holhidhe Atoll in the Foalhavahi Chagos Archipelago, located in the central Indian Ocean. The atoll is positioned at approximately 6°40′S 71°21′E, less than 10 km south of the southwestern rim of the Fehenaavari. The nearest land, Nurakka Fushi, is less than 30 km to the north. Diego Garcia, the largest island in the archipelago, is situated about 110–122 km to the southeast.
The atoll covers about 29 km² including its lagoon and fringing reef; emerged land totals roughly 4 km². Fyhendhoo measures about 1.5 km². The islands lie along the southern rim of the reef. From southeast to northwest they are Feyhendhoo, Lhohifushi, Sathuranfushi (Carpathe), Landaidhoo, Île Cipaye (Sipaille/Cipaille), and Meedhaafushi. A former small islet, has merged with Meedhaafushi. Two passages enter the lagoon on the northern rim: Fausse Passe in the northeast and a wider passage in the northwest. All the islands are low-lying coral formations, typically only a few metres above sea level.
Early Settlement and Colonization
In the 16th century, Portuguese explorers charted parts of the Chagos Archipelago.
When survivors of a Portuguese shipwreck encountered the archipelago,
They found it inhabited by dark-skinned Maldivians in the Chagos Archipelago. It was a monsoon trade busy highway according to the Arab geographers and travelers. Fyhendhoo is the largest island in the Holhidhe Atoll.
The sultan
Historians assert that Maldivian Sultan Usman, also known as Feyhendhoo Usman Rasgefaanu, originated from Fyhendhoo. Sultan Uthman al-Fahandavi (also known as Osman I or Usman of Fehendhoo, Al-Sultan Usman Al-Fahami) briefly reigned over the Maldives in 1388. He was the final ruler of the Lunar (Theemuge) dynasty and came from Feyhendhoo, not in Baa Atoll (Maalhosmadulu), Maldives. Eventually, he was overthrown, exiled to Guraidhoo in Thaa Atoll, and buried there. His tomb, called Fehendhoo Usman Rasgefaanu Ziyaaraiy, is situated on Guraidhoo.
This narrative is supported by Maldivian chronicles and later surveys, including those conducted by H.C.P. Bell.
The 1838 Survey
British naval officer Commander Robert Moresby of the East India Company’s Bombay Marine (Indian Navy) conducted a thorough scientific survey of the Chagos Archipelago in 1837–1838 after completing work on the Maldives. Feyhendhoo Holhidhe Atoll Chagos Archipelago
in 1838 and documented the active coconut plantation, the causeway linking islands, and land-reclamation works. Moresby’s charts provided the first relatively precise mapping of the group and were later used by Charles Darwin in The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs (1842).
Harry Charles Purvis (H.C.P.) Bell, who served as the first Archaeological Commissioner of Ceylon, carried out an archaeological exploration in the Maldives in 1922. In his thorough study of Maldivian history, archaeology, and epigraphy, he examined and recorded artifacts connected to Sultan Osman I (also referred to as Usman from Feyhendhoo).
Fyhendhoo and the Holhidhe Atoll illustrate the layered history of a remote coral atoll: French and British plantation colonisation that transformed the land, a detailed 19th-century hydrographic survey, subsequent abandonment, and a surrounding marine environment that remains among the least locally impacted in the tropical Indian Ocean. The coconut-dominated islands and the living reefs around them together record both human modification and the resilience of an isolated atoll ecosystem.
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