2 Pounds - Elizabeth II Egmont Islands

The Egmont Islands — also called the Peros Banhos atoll — sit at the western edge of the Chagos Archipelago and were depopulated, along with the rest of BIOT, between 1968 and 1973 when Britain evicted the Chagossian population to make way for the US military base at Diego Garcia. The islands have had no permanent inhabitants since. Coins issued under the BIOT designation carry no circulating function whatsoever; the territory has no resident civilian population to use them.