Indian Ocean islands: how to tell them apart

6 places · Updated 4 November 2026

These six islands and island groups are scattered across the Indian Ocean: the coral atolls of the Maldives south-west of India, the Seychelles, Comoros, Mauritius and Réunion off the east coast of Africa, and Christmas Island far to the east, south of Java. Apart from warm seas and tropical plants, they have surprisingly little in common, which makes them easier to tell apart than you might expect.

The side of the road splits them into two teams. The Maldives, Mauritius, Seychelles and Christmas Island drive on the left, while Réunion and Comoros drive on the right.

Language does most of the rest. The Maldives writes Dhivehi in Thaana, a slanting script read from right to left that looks like no other. Réunion is part of France, so its road signs, markings, shops and bakeries all look French. Mauritius and Seychelles pair English road signs with French place names, while Comoros uses French alongside Arabic. Christmas Island is Australian, with English signs and Chinese temples.

The land gives the final clues. Flat white sand with no hills at all points to the Maldives. Sugar cane below sharp volcanic peaks suggests Mauritius or Réunion. Huge rounded granite boulders on the beach are classic Seychelles. Black lava rock and white mosques suggest Comoros, and a rainforest plateau ringed by cliffs is Christmas Island.

At a glance

🇲🇻 Maldives

The Maldives is a nation of about 1,200 low coral islands grouped into atolls, south-west of India and Sri Lanka. White sand streets, turquoise water, coconut palms and the Thaana script are the giveaways. Malé, the capital, is a tightly packed island city, while most other islands are small, sandy and quiet.

Language and signs

Dhivehi is written in Thaana, read from right to left, with small slanted strokes above or below each letter for the vowels. English often appears alongside. "Magu" means street and "goalhi" means lane, and island names often end in "-dhoo" or "-fushi".

Roads

Traffic drives on the left. Malé's narrow streets are crammed with motorbikes and scooters. The Sinamalé Bridge links Malé to the airport island and to Hulhumalé, a newer island built on reclaimed land, with wide, straight roads. On most other inhabited islands, the streets are packed white sand.

Landscape and towns

This is the lowest-lying country in the world: no natural ground rises much more than two metres above the sea. Islands are made of coral sand, ringed by shallow turquoise reefs with deep blue water beyond. Coconut palms, breadfruit, screw pines and scrubby beach bushes cover the land, and it is hot and humid all year.

Malé is packed with tall, narrow buildings painted in pastels, with shops at street level and flats above, and mosques including the golden-domed Grand Friday Mosque. Hulhumalé has modern apartment towers. On other islands, houses are low, built of concrete or coral stone, often behind walls, with a mosque and a harbour at the heart of island life.

Easily confused with

• Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka also drives on the left, but it is a big island with hills, tea plantations and the round, curly Sinhala script. The Maldives has no hills at all.
• Seychelles: Seychelles beaches are just as pretty, but its main islands rise into steep, forested granite mountains, and signs use English and French rather than Thaana.

Did you know? The word "atoll", used around the world for a ring of coral islands, comes from Dhivehi, the language of the Maldives.

🇲🇺 Mauritius

Mauritius is a volcanic island east of Madagascar, ringed by coral reefs and lagoons. Sugar cane covers much of the land, broken by sudden, jagged peaks. Traffic drives on the left and road signs are in English, but shops, adverts and place names are mostly French.

Language and signs

Road signs and official notices are in English, while billboards and shopfronts are often in French. Most people speak Mauritian Creole at home. Place names are mostly French, such as Curepipe, Quatre Bornes and Flic en Flac, and you may see Hindi or Tamil writing on temples.

Roads

Traffic keeps to the left, with British-style signs. A motorway crosses the island from north to south, linking the capital, Port Louis, with the central towns and the airport. Elsewhere, two-lane roads wind between sugar cane fields and villages.

Landscape and towns

Sugar cane grows almost everywhere, often with piles of dark volcanic stones stacked in the fields where the ground was cleared. Sharp peaks such as Le Pouce and Pieter Both rise above the plains, and Le Morne Brabant stands over the south-west coast. The central plateau is cooler and rainier, with forests and tea estates.

Houses are mostly flat-roofed concrete, often painted in bright colours. Hindu temples with colourful painted towers are common, and in many front yards you'll see tall bamboo poles flying small triangular flags, often red. Port Louis has a busy market, office towers and a waterfront.

Easily confused with

• Réunion: Réunion has similar sugar cane and volcanic mountains, but drives on the right and uses French road signs and markings. Traffic on the left with English signs means Mauritius.
• Seychelles: Seychelles also drives on the left with English signs, but has almost no sugar cane. Its mountains are smooth grey granite, covered in forest and plunging straight to the sea.

Did you know? Mauritius was the only home of the dodo, a large flightless bird. It still appears on the country's coat of arms. At Chamarel, small dunes of sand form stripes of several colours, from red and brown to purple and blue.

🇸🇨 Seychelles

Seychelles is a group of 115 islands north-east of Madagascar. The main ones, Mahé, Praslin and La Digue, are made of granite, so they have steep, forested mountains and beaches scattered with giant smooth boulders. Traffic drives on the left, signs are mostly in English, and place names are French.

Language and signs

Road signs are mostly in English, but place names are French, and many start with "Anse" (cove), such as Anse Royale and Anse Boileau. Seychellois Creole, the most spoken language, is spelled the way it sounds: "bonzour" means hello and "mersi" means thank you.

Roads

Traffic keeps to the left. Mahé's roads are narrow and winding, hugging the coast or climbing steeply over the mountains in tight bends. Buses are a common sight. On La Digue there are very few cars, and most people get around by bicycle.

Landscape and towns

Granite mountains cloaked in thick forest rise almost straight out of the sea, leaving only a thin strip of flat land around the coast. Huge rounded grey boulders sit on the beaches and hillsides. Coconut palms, takamaka and breadfruit grow near the shore, and cinnamon grows wild on the hills. Far to the south-west lie low coral islands such as Aldabra.

Victoria, the capital, is one of the world's smallest capitals, with a little silver clock tower at its centre, a colourful market and a Hindu temple. Houses are spread along the coast and up the hillsides, often brightly painted, with metal roofs and verandas.

Easily confused with

• Mauritius: Mauritius drives on the left too, but is covered in sugar cane, with flat plains between jagged volcanic peaks. Seychelles has granite boulders and hardly any farmland.
• Maldives: The Maldives has the same turquoise water, but its islands are flat coral sand with no hills, and signs use the Thaana script.

Did you know? The coco de mer palm, which grows wild only on Praslin and nearby Curieuse, produces the biggest seed in the plant world. Aldabra, a remote coral atoll in Seychelles, is home to about 100,000 giant tortoises.

🇰🇲 Comoros

Comoros is a country of three volcanic islands between Madagascar and the African mainland: Grande Comore, Mohéli and Anjouan. Traffic drives on the right, signs are mostly in French, and white mosques stand in almost every town. Grande Comore is dominated by the huge volcano Mount Karthala and its dark lava fields.

Language and signs

French is the main language on signs and shopfronts, often with Arabic as well. Comorian, the language people speak at home, is a close cousin of Swahili. Place names often contain clusters such as "ts", "mb" and "ndz", as in Mitsamiouli, Mbéni and Ndzuwani (the local name for Anjouan).

Roads

Traffic drives on the right. A road runs around each island, mostly two narrow lanes winding along the coast and up into the hills. Away from Moroni, the capital, the roads are quiet, shared with people on foot and minibuses.

Landscape and towns

Grande Comore is a young volcanic island, much of it rough black lava with thin soil, scrubby trees and few rivers. Anjouan is steep and very green, with deep valleys and streams, while Mohéli is smaller, quieter and forested. All three are fringed by coconut palms, and ylang-ylang, vanilla and cloves are grown on many farms.

Towns are clusters of concrete-block and stone houses, many painted white or pastel, often with flat roofs. Almost every village has a mosque, often white with a slim minaret. Moroni has an old quarter of narrow alleys and an old white mosque beside the harbour.

Easily confused with

• Réunion: Réunion also drives on the right and uses French, but its roads are smooth French highways with European signs and markings, and churches are more common than mosques.
• Madagascar: Madagascar drives on the right with French signs too, but is huge, with red soil, rice paddies and tall brick houses. Comoros has black lava rock and Arabic writing on mosques.

Did you know? The coelacanth, an ancient kind of fish that scientists once thought had died out millions of years ago, still lives in the deep water around Comoros.

🇷🇪 Réunion

Réunion is an island east of Madagascar that is part of France, so its roads, signs and shops look much like those in mainland France. The scenery gives it away: towering volcanic mountains, sugar cane, palm trees and colourful Creole houses. Traffic drives on the right, and the highest peak rises above 3,000 metres.

Language and signs

Signs are in French, with the same designs and lettering as mainland France. Many town names start with "Saint" or "Sainte", such as Saint-Denis, Saint-Pierre and Sainte-Rose. Réunion Creole is widely spoken, but you'll rarely see it on official signs.

Roads

Traffic drives on the right. Roads look thoroughly French, with white dashed lines, French direction signs and roundabouts. A fast dual carriageway runs along much of the coast, including the Route des Tamarins. Inland, roads climb in endless hairpin bends into the mountains, most famously up to Cilaos.

Landscape and towns

The island is built from two volcanoes. Piton des Neiges, long quiet, is surrounded by three huge bowl-shaped valleys called cirques: Cilaos, Salazie and Mafate. Piton de la Fournaise, in the south-east, is very active, with black lava flows reaching the sea. The east is wet and lush, the west drier and sunnier, and sugar cane covers the lower slopes.

Towns mix modern French buildings, supermarkets and apartment blocks with traditional Creole houses: wooden or concrete homes with verandas, bright paint and lace-like trim along the roof edge. Hindu temples, Chinese temples, mosques and Catholic churches stand in the same towns.

Easily confused with

• Mauritius: Mauritius has very similar sugar cane and peaks, but drives on the left with English road signs. French road markings and traffic on the right mean Réunion.
• Martinique: Martinique is another French island with Creole houses and volcanic hills, but its mountains are far lower. Réunion's peaks and deep cirques are on a much grander scale.

Did you know? Réunion holds the world record for the most rain to fall in a single day. The cirque of Mafate has no roads at all. People reach its villages on foot or by helicopter.

🇨🇽 Christmas Island

Christmas Island is a small Australian territory in the Indian Ocean, south of Java and far from mainland Australia. It is a rainforest-covered plateau ringed by cliffs, with its small settlements in the north-east. Australian road signs, Chinese temples and red crabs make an unusual mix, and traffic drives on the left.

Language and signs

English is the official language, so road signs are in English. Most residents have Chinese or Malay family roots, and Chinese characters appear on temples and some shops. Place names include The Settlement, Poon Saan, Drumsite and Silver City.

Roads

Traffic keeps to the left, with Australian-style signs, including yellow diamond warnings. A handful of roads climb from the coast onto the plateau and run through the rainforest. During the red crab migration some roads close, and special crab crossings, bridges and fences help the crabs get past safely.

Landscape and towns

The island rises in steps, with limestone cliffs and terraces climbing from the sea to a central plateau. Most of it is covered in tall, dense rainforest, much of it protected as a national park. In a few places, phosphate rock is mined, leaving pale, open clearings. The climate is warm and humid all year.

The Settlement, beside Flying Fish Cove, has shops, offices and apartment blocks. Poon Saan and Drumsite, further up the hill, have more homes, Chinese temples and community buildings. Most buildings are concrete with metal roofs.

Easily confused with

• Australia: Mainland Australia has the same signs, but its tropical north has red soil, eucalyptus and open bush. Christmas Island is dense rainforest on limestone, with Chinese temples.
• Kiribati: Kiribati's Kiritimati is also called Christmas Island, but it is a flat, dry coral atoll in the Pacific. Australia's Christmas Island is high, rocky and covered in rainforest.

Did you know? Every year, millions of red crabs march from the forest to the sea to breed, covering roads, paths and gardens. The island got its name because a ship's captain sailed past it on Christmas Day in 1643.

Further reading

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