North Passage Island

North Passage Island belongs to the East Baratang Group of the Andaman Islands, lying east of Baratang and Colebrooke Island and roughly 80 km north of Port Blair. It falls under Rangat Taluk in the North and Middle Andaman district, and about 95 per cent of it is a wildlife reserve.

People have rarely lived here apart from occasional visits by groups of the Great Andamanese. The one village is at Merk Bay, where around 100 acres behind the beach were handed to the Agriculture Department some four decades ago for a coconut plantation; Forest Department staff and the plantation's caretakers are now the only residents. On a sharp cape at the island's northern tip, the Cape Portman lighthouse marks the northern approach to Diligent Strait.