Maldives or the Republic of Maldives is a chain of islands scattered over the Indian Ocean, situated right on the equator southwest of Sri Lanka. The islands stretch for about 820 km from North to South, 130 km at the widest point and each does not exceed a length of 4.5 miles or an altitude of 6 feet above sea level. Groups of these islands are clustered into 'Atolls', the word derived from a word 'Atholhu' in Dhivehi, a Maldivian language. The word Atoll has two meaning on its own; one represents a geographical atoll which is a formation of several islands in the proximity, while another refers to an administrative division. For this reason, several atolls have both an old traditional name and a name for its administrative region, some of which can be one and the same, for example, the administrative region of Lhaviyani Atoll is the geographical atoll of Faadhippolhu. However in some cases, some large geographical atolls are divided into two small administrative regions whereas some other two small geographical atolls are grouped into one administrative region.

There are total of 26 geographical atolls in the country grouping 1,192 islands together, among them only 10 atolls (about 87 islands) are selected as a tourist resorts. This is due to the government policy to preserve as much ecology and its regulation that resorts can only be established on uninhabited islands. In fact, biddings for leases of these islands are competitive; though, the bids incorporated with least environmental impacts are likely to win. Practically, it is a primary regulation that resorts do not take over 20% of an island's area, or be higher than surrounding vegetation. Also, the resort corporation must be responsible for all basic infrastructure and facilities especially electricity, water supply and garbage disposal. Aside these resort islands, the rest of the islands are other uninhabited islands used for agricultural activities, and around 202 inhabited islands. The capital city of Male'; seat of parliament and center of commerce, health and transportation; is the biggest inhabited island with population of about 75,000 people.

Table: List of 10 tourist resort atolls sorting by its administrative regions