Important Bird Areas in United Kingdom Overseas Territories - British Indian Ocean Territory

The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), also known as the Chagos Archipelago, lies at the southern end of the Laccadives–Maldives–Chagos ridge, in the geographical centre of the tropical Indian Ocean. Its central feature is the Great Chagos Bank, the world’s largest atoll, found between 5˚20' to 7˚35'S and 71˚20' to 72˚40'E. Although most of the Great Chagos Bank is submerged, the above-water land mass of the archipelago, totalling approximately 67 individual islands, can be grouped in to five islanded atolls
found around the Chagos Bank: Peros Banhos and Salomon Atolls to the north, the Chagos Bank and Egmont Atolls to the west, and Diego Garcia Atoll, the largest land mass, to the south (Bourne 1971, Sheppard 1981, Sheppard et al. 1999).