The islands host the Andaman and Nicobar Command, the only geographical command operated jointly by the three major wings of the Indian Armed Forces: the Army, the Air Force and the Navy. While Hindi and English are the official languages, the major spoken languages include Bengali, Tamil and Telugu. Indigenous people speak any of the Andamanese or Nicobarese family of languages. Hinduism is the majority religion in the union territory, with a significant Christian minority. The islands include North Sentinel Island, home to the Sentinelese people, an uncontacted tribe.

Etymology

The name Andaman might have been derived from Handuman, after the Indian God Hanuman from the Hindu epic Ramayana. The place was called with a similar name by the Malays, who used to be involved in slave trade in the region.The place was also referred by various names such as Angademan by Ptolemy in the 2nd century CE and Angamanian by Marco Polo in 13th century.Nicobar, which was located in the sea route connecting South India to South East Asia, was known as Nakkavaram, meaning "open/naked land" borrowed from Tamil language which later became Nicobar. In the middle ages (500-1500 AD), Nicobar was known as Lankhabatus in Arabia, probably a mis-transcription of the name Nakkavaram. An 11th-century work Kathasaritsagar indicates the name as Narikel Dweep (meaning Coconut Island in Bengali).Marco Polo termed the island as Necuverann, while the islands were known as Lo-Jan Kuo in China, a translation of Nakkavar with the same meaning.