Description: This ecoregion, comprised of an archipelago of one large and many smaller high islands of complex geomorphology, is oriented in a north - south direction on the Andaman - Nicobar ridge. With the neighbouring Nicobar Islands to the south, the Andaman Islands divide the Bay of Bengal in the west from the Andaman Sea in the east. Most islands belong to India, although the Coco Islands in the far north form part of Myanmar. An almost continuous line of reefs fringe all coasts, other than in the immediate vicinity of the larger river estuaries, and reef waters are mostly clear. With other neighbouring ecoregions, many reefs were impacted to greater or lesser degree by the December 2004 tsunami, which also swamped low-lying parts of the islands. Climate is wet tropical and all islands are or were heavily forested. Many are uninhabited or only sparsely inhabited by itinerant fishers. Most of the ca 400,000 strong population is established on the largest, Smith Island, mainly around Port Blair in the south, with localized impacts from land clearing for settlements, agriculture and forestry, with runoff and sedimentation to coastal reefs

Distinguishing ecoregion characteristics: A geographically semi-discrete ecoregion. In the north and east, the boundary is clearly delineated by the influence of the Irrawaddy River and deep central basin of the Andaman Sea. The boundary with the Nicobar Islands to the south is at the deep, 150km wide Ten Degree Channel. Records are not sufficiently comprehensive to allow this ecoregion to be subdivided or amalgamated with neighbours

Additional Information: Andaman Islands corals have close affinity with those of the Nicobar Islands, Andaman Sea, Strait of Malacca and West Sumatra (Veron, Stafford-Smith, DeVantier et al., 2015)

General Ecoregion References: Spalding, Ravilious and Green (2001); Venkataraman, Satyanarayana, Alfred et al. (2003); Tamelander and Rajasuriya (2008); Burke, Reytar, Spalding et al. (2011); Veron, Stafford-Smith, DeVantier et al. (2015);

Principal Coral Distribution References: In preparation