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The Andaman Islands are a group of archipelagic islands in the Bay of Bengal, and are part of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Union Territory of India. Port Blair is the chief community on the islands, and the administrative centre of the Union Territory. The Andaman Islands form a single administrative district within the Union Territory, the Andaman district (the Nicobar district was separated and established as a new district in 1974). The population of the Andamans was 314,084 in 2001. Of the slightly more than 300,000 people that live in the Andaman Islands, a small minority of about 1,000 are indigenous Adivasis of the Andamans. The rest are mainly divided between Hindi, Bengali, Tamil and Punjabi speaking people from the mainland. The Andamanese is a collective term to describe the peoples who are the aboriginal inhabitants of the Andaman Islands and Nicobar Islands, located in the Bay of Bengal. The term includes the Great Andamanese, Jarawa, Onge, Shompen, Sentinelese and the extinct Jangil. Anthropologically they are usually classified as Negritos, represented also by the Semang of Malaysia and the Aeta of the Philippines. |
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