Great Nicobar Island
— — the green edge of the country, where the ocean turns toward Sumatra.
Not only on a wall.
“The largest of the Nicobar group, and the last Indian land before the Indian Ocean opens toward Sumatra. Most of the island is rainforest under the Campbell Bay and Galathea national park reserves. The Shompen, who live in the interior, remain one of the world's least-contacted peoples. Indira Point, at the southern tip, is the southernmost surveyed point of Indian territory.
Great Nicobar Island, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Great Nicobar covers about 1,045 square kilometres at the southern end of the Nicobar group, roughly 150 kilometres north of Banda Aceh, Sumatra, and 530 kilometres south of Port Blair. Indira Point, at the island's southern tip, lies at 6 degrees 45 minutes north, the southernmost surveyed point of Indian territory and the closest Indian land to the equator. The island is administered as part of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Union Territory. UNESCO designated the Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve in 2013 under the Man and the Biosphere programme.
The island runs a tropical rainforest climate with no dry season, rain falling in every month and peaking from May to November with the southwest monsoon. Mean annual rainfall above 3,000 millimetres feeds two protected reserves: Campbell Bay National Park, 426 square kilometres in the north, and Galathea National Park, 110 square kilometres along the southeast coast. Both shelter the Nicobar megapode, the leatherback sea turtle, and the saltwater crocodile. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami struck the island within minutes of the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake, subsiding the southern coast by roughly a metre.
Two indigenous peoples live on the island. The Nicobarese, in coastal villages, have had contact with the wider world for centuries. The Shompen, in the interior rainforest, number perhaps 200 to 300 people, speak a language unrelated to any other in the region, and remain one of the world's least-contacted peoples. The Indian government restricts access to most of the island under the Protection of Aboriginal Tribes regulation; non-residents require permits, and large areas are closed entirely. Settlements outside the protected reserves are limited to Campbell Bay and a small string of coastal villages.