Atoll remains of an ancient atoll as a hill in a limestone area is called a reef knoll. The second largest atoll by dry land area is Aldabra with 155 km². The largest atoll in terms of island numbers is Huvadhu Atoll in the south of the Maldives with 255 islands. In 1842, Charles Darwin explained the creation of coral atolls in the southern Pacific Ocean based upon observations made during a five-year voyage aboard from 1831 to 1836. Accepted as basically correct, his explanation involved considering that several tropical island types—from high volcanic island, through barrier reef island, to atoll—represented
Lhaviyani Atoll Lhaviyani Atoll Lhaviyani Atoll (also known as Faadhippolhu Atoll) is an administrative division of the Maldives. Its abbreviation is "Lh". Lhaviyani Atoll is located between 5° 15" and 5° 35" N and between 73° 20" and 74° 40" E. The capital of the atoll is Naifaru. There are a total of 54 islands in the atoll of which only 5 are inhabited: namely Naifaru, Hinnavaru, Kurendhoo and Olhuvelifushi. The island of Maafilaafushi was resettled in the 1980s in order to relieve the lack of land availability in Malé. The island once served as the capital of the separatist Kingdom of