The Mergui Archipelago is located in far southern Myanmar (Burma) and is part of the Tanintharyi Region. It consists of more than 800 islands, varying in size from very small to hundreds of square kilometres, all lying in the Andaman Sea off the western shore of the Malay Peninsula near its landward (northern) end where it joins the rest of Indochina. They are occasionally the islands are referred to as the Pashu Islands because the Malay inhabitants are locally called Pashu.