In the 2026 Travel+Leisure awards, the Maldives was placed second among the world’s best islands, after Thailand’s Koh Samui. Yet the same index gave the Maldives a quiet score of only 8.48 out of 100.

The Maldives covers about 116 square miles. According to a Telegraph Travel analysis of United Nations World Tourism Organization data, there are about 17,800 tourists for every square mile.

Tourism is the biggest source of foreign exchange for the Maldives. Last year, 2 million visitors came to the islands.

In the first seven months of 2026, the islands received 1.23 million tourists. That is 5.2 % fewer than the same period a year earlier, because of flight changes and higher travel costs.

The report said that the centre of Male is full of cars, two‑wheelers, thousands of local residents and millions of tourists. All this traffic adds a lot of noise to the country.