This Floating City in the Maldives Could Become a Template For Addressing Rising Sea Levels

A metropolis is emerging from the Indian Ocean. A floating metropolis large enough to accommodate 20,000 people is being built in a turquoise lagoon only 10 minutes by boat from Male, the capital of the Maldives.

The floating city will be made out of 5,000 floating structures, including homes, businesses, restaurants, and schools, with canals snaking in between them in a pattern reminiscent of brain coral. The first apartments will be presented this month, with inhabitants expected to move in at the beginning of 2024. The entire city is expected to be finished by 2027.

The project, a partnership between the government of the Maldives and real estate developer Dutch Docklands, is being developed as a workable response to the hard reality of sea-level rise rather than as a crazy experiment or future fantasy.

The Maldives, an archipelago of 1,190 low-lying islands, is among the most climate change-vulnerable countries in the world. Eighty percent of its land area lies below one meter above sea level, and if sea levels rise as predicted by the end of the century, they might reach a meter, submerging nearly the whole nation.