Satellite Image Shows Construction of World's First Floating City

A floating city, considered the world's first, is starting to take shape in the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean.

Satellite imagery provided exclusively to Newsweek by Maxar Technologies shows the state of construction of the Maldives Floating City, a development of modular floating platforms that is scheduled to be completed in 2027.

The "island city," the brainchild of the Maldivian government in partnership with the Dutch architectural firm Waterstudio, is sprouting in a lagoon about 10 minutes by boat from the capital of Male. It is intended as a practical solution to a very real problem facing the South Asian island nation, the world's lowest-lying country with an average elevation of just five feet above sea level.

The development's first inhabitants are expected within 14 months, Koen Olthuis, the lead architect on the project, told Newsweek. There's been a "bit of delay because of some political way finding between Indian and Chinese-oriented economic interests," but the construction phase is now full-steam ahead.

The city will eventually have some 20,000 residents living in 5,000 homes placed along a hexagonal grid in the shape of a "brain coral" that connects to an outer ring of barrier islands that will act as breakers, according to Waterstudio. Boats will replace cars as the main way to transit both the island and between the mainland.

Perhaps most intriguing to prospective residents is the price. Residences — all of which will be sea-facing by design — will start at $250,000 USD for a family home, according to a 2021 press release. The developers say they expect foreigners to buy in, but are also marketing properties to "local fishing families who, for centuries, have called the area home."

One of the original aspects of the pitch was to help alleviate overcrowding on the mainland, which has a rapidly growing tourism industry. But the master plan is also a response to the rising sea levels that threaten the 1,100 coral islands that make up the Maldives. According to estimates from NASA, up to 80 percent of the country could be uninhabitable by the middle of the century due to sea-level rise.

Mohamed Nasheed, former president of the Maldives and supporter of the project, said during the planning phase the brilliance of the idea was that it did not require any land reclamation or other impacts on the ocean's coral reefs. He described it as a sustainable and innovative potential solution to the existential risk of climate change.

"In the Maldives we cannot stop the waves, but we can rise with them," Nasheed said.

Update 5/3/24, 1:30 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from the lead architect on the project.

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