DIEGO GARCIA

coral atoll, largest and southernmost member of the Chagos Archipelago, in the southern Indian Ocean. Occupying an area of about 17 square miles (44 square km), it consists of a V-shaped, sand-fringed cay, about 15 miles (24 km) in length and having a maximum width of about 7 miles; the lagoon is open at the north end. Discovered by the Portuguese in the early 16th century, it was for most of its history a dependency of Mauritius. In 1965 it was separated from Mauritius as part of the newly created British Indian Ocean Territory. The production of copra from coconut palms was the only economic activity until the early 1970s, when the last of the plantation workers and their families were moved to Mauritius to facilitate the development of U.S. military communications facilities established in accordance with a 1966 agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom. Development of this base for air and naval support in the late 1970s evoked strong opposition from littoral states of the Indian Ocean area, who wished to preserve a nonmilitarized status in the region.