Indira Point is situated on the island of
Great NicobarGreat Nicobar is the largest of the Nicobar Islands of India, north of Sumatra. Indira Point, its southernmost tip, is also the southernmost point of India. The island of Sumatra is located to the south of Great Nicobar...
in the
Nicobar IslandsThe Nicobar Islands are an archipelagic island chain in the eastern Indian Ocean...
, eastern
Indian OceanThe Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...
, and it represents the southernmost point of land in the territory of
IndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. The point is located in the
Union TerritoryA Union Territory is a sub-national administrative division of India, in the federal framework of governance. Unlike the states of India, which have their own elected governments, union territories are ruled directly by the federal government; the President of India appoints an Administrator or...
of
Andaman and Nicobar Islands and is named in honour of
Indira GandhiIndira Priyadarshini Gandhara was an Indian politician who served as the third Prime Minister of India for three consecutive terms and a fourth term . She was assassinated by Sikh extremists...
. It was formerly known by various names, including
Pygmalion Point,
Parsons Point and, for a brief period of time,
India Point.
Although Kanyakumari is the southernmost tip of the mainland of the
Indian subcontinentThe Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
itself, Indira Point was the farthest south on Indian soil until the
tsunamiA tsunami is a series of water waves caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, typically an ocean or a large lake...
generated by the
2004 Indian Ocean earthquakeThe 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea megathrust earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on Sunday, December 26, 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The quake itself is known by the scientific community as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake...
inundated much of its area, partly submerging the
lighthouseA lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire, and used as an aid to navigation for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways....
. However, geologists have stated that the sea is slowly starting to retreat back to its original position.
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