Barbados

An island country in the West Indies, Barbados is an independent British Commonwealth nation.

Capital is Bridgetown.

The official language is English and the majority of residents speak ‘Bajan’, an English-based creole, heavily influenced by West Africa.

Population, 288,379. Size, 432 km^2.

Currency is the Barbadian Dollar.

Religion is predominately Christian.

Major cities include Speightstown, Oistins, Bathsheba, and Holetown.

National dish is flying fish and cou cou which is a saucy, stew like fish served on top of a polenta, grits like starch. Principal crops include sugar cane, vegetables, and cotton.

Barbados enjoys a tropical, oceanic climate with hot and humid conditions that persist year-round. Weather seasons can be classified as either wet or dry, with the wet season coinciding with the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June to November.

After being a British Colony for so long there are lots of British influences still visible on the island, including the red post boxes and street names like Buckingham Hill. Barbados has been governed by an uninterrupted parliament since 1639, which makes it the third oldest parliament in the world. Very little of the original indigenous vegetation remains in Barbados because so much of the land was cultivated for sugarcane. Barbados is considered the birthplace of rum. Bridgetown is home to the oldest Jewish Synagogue in the Western Hemisphere built in 1628. The grapefruit was invented in Barbados. Barbados is considered the culinary capital of the Caribbean. Barbados and Japan have the highest per capita occurrences of centenarians in the world. Barbados is not in the Caribbean Sea, it is entirely surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean. Barbados was not formed by volcanic actively like the other Caribbean island but rather by the collision of the Caribbean plate with the Atlantic Plate. Although Barbados is 3000 miles away from West Africa, it often experiences high amounts of dust coming from the Sahara.