Manuscripts: Map

MAHS-MDV-COL-001-O-0032

This map was prepared by the Maldives Land Registration Division in 1978. The title is printed in English at top right, with date and office in which the map was prepared below. Block numbers are given for the first time on this map. Both imperial and metric scale bars are shown at the bottom right of the original map. It is oriented with north at the top. A legend, which was added later at the top left, is also written in English. Below this legend is a stamp of Malé Municipality. New blocks are marked on newly reclaimed land added in the areas of the northwest harbor, as well as along the western and southern extensions of the old city limits. The legend is clearly a later addition as it provides a key to an outline drawn on this map, which is of much later date. This map indicates the changing city limits of three historical moments: 1950, 1978 and1986. The outline of the city in subsequent years are drawn over the original map of 1978, allowing us to trace the changing contours of the city over the middle decades of the twentieth century. The detailed photography and digital stitching of this map and five others from the collection of the National Museum of the Maldives was done by Aishath Shifa Shafeeg and Hamzah Hassan over a period from 22 March – 28 May, 2021.