Atoll · K
Kaafu — also called North and South Malé Atoll — is the gateway atoll. Velana International Airport sits on its eastern rim, which is why almost every trip to the Maldives begins and ends here, and why its local islands are the easiest to reach without an internal flight.
Dhiffushi sits at the eastern edge of Kaafu, at the end of the chain rather than in the middle of it, with a little under…
1,270 residentsBikini beach
Gulhi is a small island in southern Kaafu with fewer than a thousand residents, and its main advantage is position: it sits on…
976 residentsBikini beach
Guraidhoo sits in southern Kaafu with around seventeen hundred residents, which makes it a proper island community rather than a…
1,743 residentsBikini beach
Hulhumalé is not a holiday island and does not pretend to be. It is reclaimed land next to the airport, built to take the…
65,714 residents
Huraa lies in northern Kaafu with around sixteen hundred residents, close enough to Malé that the transfer is short and far…
1,654 residentsBikini beach
Maafushi sits about 26 km south of Malé in Kaafu Atoll, and it is where local-island tourism in the Maldives first took hold at…
4,471 residentsBikini beach
Malé is the capital, and one of the most densely populated cities anywhere — roughly two hundred thousand people on a few square…
211,908 residents
Thulusdhoo is the surf island of Kaafu Atoll, and it wears that identity plainly. Two of the best-known breaks in the country sit…
1,801 residentsBikini beach