The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) is a UK Overseas Territory situated halfway between Tanzania and Indonesia and comprising the seven atolls of the Chagos Archipelago, itself comprising ...

Britain split the islands away from Mauritius, a former British colony, in 1965, three years before Mauritius gained independence, and called the Chagos archipelago the British Indian Ocean Territory.

Approval from the White House was necessary to broker the deal due to U.S. military cooperation with the U.K. at the joint Diego Garcia base on the archipelago’s largest island. The Chagos ...