Barbados

Indigenous peoples had largely left the island by the time an English ship landed in 1625 and claimed it. From the 1640s Barbados pioneered the English sugar-and-slavery plantation model that was then exported across the Caribbean, becoming for a time the richest colony in English America, worked by enslaved Africans who soon vastly outnumbered the English planters.

Emancipation came in 1834–38, but power stayed with a small white plantation elite for another century. The 1937 riots, the rise of the labour movement under figures such as Sir Grantley Adams and later Errol Barrow, and the extension of the vote led to self-government and then independence from Britain in 1966.

Barbados kept the British monarch as head of state until 30 November 2021, when it became a parliamentary republic within the Commonwealth, with a ceremonial president. Its assembly dates to 1639, making it one of the oldest continuous parliamentary bodies outside Britain. Sugar's long decline has been replaced by tourism and financial services, and in recent years the country has drawn international attention for Prime Minister Mia Mottley's advocacy on climate finance.

Bajan culture is Afro-Caribbean and Anglophone, and — from more than three centuries of unbroken British presence — outwardly more "British" in some respects than most of the region: cricket, Anglican churches, place names, driving on the left, and a parliamentary tradition.

Cricket is close to a civil religion. Barbados has produced an extraordinary roll of greats, from Sir Garfield Sobers and the "three Ws" to Wes Hall, Gordon Greenidge, and Malcolm Marshall, and Kensington Oval in Bridgetown is a shrine that hosted the 2007 World Cup final. Crop Over is the big festival, rooted in the celebration marking the end of the sugar harvest and running from July to a costumed street parade on Grand Kadooment Day in early August.

The Landship — a friendly society that gently parodies the Royal Navy with "crews," uniforms, and a dance performed to tuk band music — is a uniquely Bajan institution. Christianity dominates, and the rum shop as village hub, the "lime" (hanging out), and Sunday church-and-family are the social rhythm. The singer Rihanna, born in Bridgetown, is a National Hero.

Most of the roughly 280,000 Bajans live in the parishes spreading out from Bridgetown, the only city, whose historic centre and the nearby Garrison are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is one of the more densely populated countries in the world, but low-rise and green, with sugar cane still covering parts of the interior.

Tourism and financial services are the economic mainstays, supported by good schools and health care and a strong civil service. Life runs on the bus into Bridgetown, the market, the rum shop, the cricket, and Sunday worship, with close ties to relatives in the UK, the US, and Canada.

Barbados imports most of what it consumes, so the cost of living is high, and it watches the Atlantic hurricane season from June to November, though its position far to the east and south spares it more often than much of the region.

The national dish is cou-cou and flying fish: cou-cou a smooth cornmeal-and-okra polenta, served with flying fish — once so abundant here that Barbados is "the land of the flying fish" — steamed in a spiced tomato gravy or fried. Fish cakes (salt-cod fritters) with "bakes," macaroni pie, and rice and peas are everyday staples.

"Pudding and souse" — steamed sweet-potato pudding with pickled pork — is a Saturday tradition, and "cutters," sandwiches in a salt-bread roll, are the standard quick lunch. The Friday-night fish fry at Oistins, a south-coast fishing village, is a national ritual of grilled marlin and mahi-mahi, sides, rum, and music at communal tables.

Barbados claims to be the birthplace of rum: Mount Gay traces its origins to 1703, and the island has more than a thousand rum shops. Bajan seasoning, a green herb-and-scotch-bonnet marinade, and a mustard-based Bajan pepper sauce are on every table, alongside local drinks such as mauby (a bittersweet bark infusion) and sorrel at Christmas.

The west "Platinum" coast — Holetown, Paynes Bay, Mullins — has the calm swimming, turtle snorkelling, and upmarket resorts; the south coast around St. Lawrence Gap is livelier and cheaper; and the rugged east, above all Bathsheba with its mushroom-shaped boulders and the "Soup Bowl" surf break, is for scenery and Atlantic drama rather than swimming.

Bridgetown and the Garrison hold National Heroes Square, the Parliament Buildings, one of the oldest synagogues in the Americas, and the Garrison Savannah horse-racing track ringed by colonial military buildings; George Washington House is where the future president made his only trip outside what became the United States, in 1751. Harrison's Cave is a drivable limestone cavern of streams and formations.

Historic plantation houses and gardens are scattered across the island — St. Nicholas Abbey, a Jacobean great house with its own rum distillery; Sunbury; Andromeda Gardens; Hunte's Gardens — and the Barbados Wildlife Reserve is home to free-roaming green monkeys. Catamaran cruises, dive sites, and the shipwrecks of the Carlisle Bay marine park round out the water-based options.