The Maldives is an island country located in the Indian Ocean, southwest of Sri Lanka and India. It is an archipelagic state and country in South Asia, situated in the Indian Ocean, and is composed of multiple atolls which are made up of a total of 1196 islands. The Maldives chain of 26 atolls stretches across the equator from Ihavandhippolhu Atoll in the north to Addu Atoll in the south. The country covers an area of around 90,000 square kilometers, but only 298 km² of that is dry land, an area smaller than the city of Munich.