Maldives: A Hulhudheli Island silversmith uses a bellows to operate a blowpipe, South Nilandhoo Atoll, 1980

The tiny island of Hulhudheli lies in the South Nilandhoo Atoll. Here, lives the country's only group of hereditary silversmiths.

Asia's smallest and least-known nation, the Republic of Maldives, lies scattered from north to south across a 750-kilometre sweep of the Indian Ocean 500 kilometres south-west of Sri Lanka. More than 1000 islands, together with innumerable banks and reefs, are grouped in a chain of nineteen atolls which extends from a point due west of Colombo to just south of the equator.

Copyright:

CPA Media Co. Ltd.

Photographer:

Andrew Forbes

Credit:

Pictures From Asia