← The interactive mapAll civilizations

Sentinelese

1000 BC – present
Native nationAsia

Hunter-gatherers of North Sentinel Island in the Andamans, and the most isolated people on earth. They have met every landing with arrows since the British first came ashore in 1867, and India long ago stopped trying: the 1956 Aboriginal Tribes Regulation makes the island a tribal reserve, bars anyone from coming within five kilometres, and the Navy patrols the water to keep it that way. Sovereignty over the island is Indian on paper only — the people who live there govern it, and the state has chosen not to. Population estimates run from 15 to 300; nobody has ever counted them up close.

Not an ending: the Sentinelese are still there. North Sentinel is a tribal reserve under the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Protection of Aboriginal Tribes Regulation 1956, approach within five kilometres is prohibited, and the Government of India has said it will not prosecute the islanders for killing anyone who comes ashore. They survived the 2004 tsunami and the uplift of their island.

Borders in 2026 · drawn from 1 sourced border frame
See it on the interactive map →

Further reading

Sources