THE GEOGRAPHY (Foreign Office UK)
Area: 13,939 sq. km. (5 382 sq. mi.)
Population: (2002 est): 300 529
Capital City: Nassau, New Providence.
Second Largest City - Freeport, Grand
Bahama
People: Nationality - Noun and adjective
- Bahamian(s); Ethnic Groups -
African 85% European 12% Asian and
Hispanic 3%
Languages: English; some Creole
amongst Haitian groups. Education:
Years compulsory - through age 16.
Attendance: 95%. Literacy - 98.2%
Religion(s): Baptist predominant (32%)
Roman Catholic (19%), Anglican (20%),
Evangelical Protestants (12%),
Methodists, Church of God (6%)
Currency: Bahamian Dollar (BSD)
Major political parties: Free National
Movement (FNM), Progressive Liberal
Party (PLP), Bahamian Freedom
Alliance (PFA), Coalition for
Democratic Reform (CDR)
Government: Constitutional
parliamentary democracy.
Independence: July 10, 1973
GEOGRAPHY
Terrain: Low and Flat
Climate: Semitropical
THE HISTORY (Foreign Office UK)
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In 1492, Christopher Columbus made
his first landfall in the Western
Hemisphere in The Bahamas. Spanish
slave traders later captured native
Lucayan Indians to work in the gold
mines in Hispaniola, and within 25
years, all Lucayans perished. In 1647, a
group of English and Bermudan
religious refugees, the Eleutheran
Adventurers, founded the first
permanent European settlement in the
Bahamas and gave Eleuthera Island its
name. Similar groups of settlers
formed governments in the Bahamas
until the islands became a British
Crown Colony in 1717. The first Royal
Governor, a former pirate named
Woodes Rogers, brought law and order
to the Bahamas in 1718, when he
expelled the buccaneers who had used
the islands as hideouts. During the
American Civil War, the Bahamas
prospered as a centre of Confederate
blockade-running. After World War I,
the islands served as a base for
American rum-runners. During World
War II, the Allies centred their flight
training and anti-submarine operations
for the Caribbean in the Bahamas.
Since then, the Bahamas has developed
into a major tourist and financial
services centre. The Bahamas achieved
self-government through a series of
constitutional and political steps,
attaining internal self-government in
1964 and full independence within the
Commonwealth on July 10, 1973.
THE ECONOMY (Foreign Office UK)
Trade and Investment with the UK
The Bahamas is the UK's eighth largest
market in the Caribbean with total
exports of £25m in 2000. The US
dominates the Bahamian market given
its close geographic links and has a 33%
market share; the UK has a 2% share.
Principal UK exports to the Bahamas
are manufactured goods, mineral fuels,
chemicals, machinery and transport
equipment, food and beverages. UK
imports in 2000 amounted to £46m,
mainly beverages. However January –
October 2001 figures indicate a
dramatic decline in beverage imports
from the Bahamas. These figures do
not take into account the considerable
volumes of invisible trade (banking,
insurance, consultancy, financial
services, etc) between the 2
countries, or goods reaching The
Bahamas through entrepots, most
notably the Port of Miami. Additionally,
there is a considerable amount of
offshore trade between the two
countries.
PEOPLE
Eighty-five percent of the Bahamian
population is of African heritage. About
two-thirds of the population reside on
New Providence Island (the location of
Nassau). Many ancestors arrived in the
Bahama Islands when they served a
staging area for the slave trade in the
early 1800s. Others accompanied
thousands of British loyalists who fled
the American colonies during the
Revolutionary War.
School Attendance is compulsory
between the ages of 5 and 16. The
government fully operates 158 of 210
primary and secondary schools in the
Bahamas. The other 52 schools are
privately operated. Enrolment for state
and private primary and secondary
schools amounts to more than 66,000
students. The College of the Bahamas,
established in Nassau in 1974, provides
programmes leading to Bachelors and
associates degrees. The college is now
converting from a 2 year to a 4 year
institution. Several non-Bahamian
colleges also offer higher education
programmes in the Bahamas.
Flags Of The World: Commonwealth of the Bahamas, The Bahamas
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