Nicolas Sanson (20 December 1600 – 7 July 1667) was a French cartographer, termed by some the creator of French geography, in which he's been called the 'father of French cartography'. Asia's smallest and least-known nation, the Republic of Maldives, lies scattered from north to south across a 750-kilometre sweep of the Indian Ocean 500 kilometres south-west of Sri Lanka. More than 1000 islands, together with innumerable banks and reefs, are grouped in a chain of nineteen atolls which extends from a point due west of Colombo to just south of the equator.

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Keywords: 1652, 17th, asia, asian, atoll, cartography, century, ceylon, chart, india, indian, island, lanka, maldives, maldivian, map, nicolas, ocean, sanson, sri, taprobane