Falkland Islands

A wind-scoured South Atlantic archipelago — the Falkland Islands to the United Kingdom, Islas Malvinas to Argentina — whose contested sovereignty, a long pastoral colony, a 1982 war and an overwhelming 2013 referendum have made it one of the world's most closely watched disputed territories.

The Falkland Islands (Spanish: Islas Malvinas) are a British Overseas Territory of some 3,500 people in the South Atlantic, about 480 km east of southern Argentina, which maintains a long-standing claim to the archipelago it calls the Islas Malvinas. Uninhabited at the time of their first recorded sighting, the islands saw competing French, British and Spanish settlements in the 1760s, and after Spanish administration from Buenos Aires and a post-independence Argentine presence, Britain re-established control in 1833 — the start of the continuous administration that defines the islands' present status. A pastoral colony built on sheep and wool grew up around a British-descended population, while the United Nations listed the territory among its Non-Self-Governing Territories and recognised a sovereignty dispute between Argentina and the United Kingdom. Argentina's 1982 invasion triggered a 74-day war that Britain won at the cost of roughly a thousand lives on both sides; in a 2013 referendum islanders voted almost unanimously to remain a British Overseas Territory, a result the United Kingdom upholds and Argentina rejects.