The atoll is located 3,535 km (2,197 mi) east of Tanzania's coast, 1,796 km (1,116 mi) south-southwest of the southern tip of India (at Kanyakumari), and 4,723 km (2,935 mi) west-northwest of the west coast of Australia (at Cape Range National Park, Western Australia). It is one of two critical US bomber bases in the Indo-Pacific region, along with Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, Pacific Ocean. As of August 2018, Diego Garcia is the only inhabited island of the BIOT the population is composed of military personnel and supporting contractors. However, the British dismissed this ruling as not legally binding. In 2019, this action and continued British administration of the archipelago were deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, a ruling the United Nations General Assembly supported. Many were deported to Mauritius and the Seychelles, following which the United States built the large Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia, which has been in continuous operation since then. īetween 19, the inhabitants were forcibly expelled from Diego Garcia by the UK Government so a joint US/UK military base could be established on the island. The Crown immediately leased back the properties to Chagos-Agalega but the company terminated the lease at the end of 1967. In April 1967, the BIOT Administration bought out Chagos-Agalega for £600,000, thus becoming the sole property owner in the BIOT. In 1964, only 3 of a population of 963 were unemployed. Although it was common for local plantation managers to allow pensioners and the disabled to remain in the islands and continue to receive housing and rations in exchange for light work, children after the age of 12 were required to work. : par 23 These people were employed as contract farm workers primarily on copra plantations owned by the Chagos-Agalega company. In 1966, the population of the island was 924. It was one of the 'Dependencies' of the British Colony of Mauritius until the Chagos Islands were detached for inclusion in the newly created British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) in 1965. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to find it and it was then settled by the French in the 1790s and transferred to British rule after the Napoleonic Wars.

It is a militarised atoll just south of the equator in the central Indian Ocean, and the largest of the 60 small islands of the Chagos Archipelago. Diego Garcia is an island of the British Indian Ocean Territory, an overseas territory of the United Kingdom.

Fantasy life origin island cia