Curaçao

The island was home to the Caquetío, an Arawak people; the Spanish, arriving in 1499, deported most of them to work on Hispaniola. The Dutch West India Company took Curaçao in 1634 and made its deep natural harbour a stronghold and a trading hub. For much of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Curaçao was the company's principal slave-trading depot in the Caribbean — a transit market where tens of thousands of enslaved Africans were held and sold on to Spanish and other colonies, a role central to the island's early wealth and to Willemstad's growth.

A Sephardic Jewish community, arriving from Amsterdam and Brazil in the seventeenth century, became prominent in trade; its Mikvé Israel-Emanuel synagogue, with a sand-covered floor, is the oldest in continuous use in the Americas. After emancipation in 1863, the island lived from salt, phosphate, and shipping until 1918, when Royal Dutch Shell built a large refinery to process crude from newly discovered Venezuelan oilfields, transforming the economy and drawing migrant labour.

Curaçao was the seat of government of the Netherlands Antilles. A 1969 labour uprising, "Trinta di Mei", pushed forward Antillean autonomy and the recognition of Papiamentu. When the Netherlands Antilles were dissolved in 2010, Curaçao became an autonomous country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, with its own parliament and government while the Kingdom keeps defence and foreign affairs. The refinery, later leased to Venezuela's state oil company, has been largely idle for years, and the island is working to replace it and to absorb an influx of Venezuelans fleeing their country's crisis.

Curaçaoan culture is Afro-Caribbean at its core, expressed through Papiamentu — spoken with pride and used in schools, media, and politics — and through music and festival. Tumba is the Carnival rhythm, subject of a fierce annual song contest; tambú, a drum-and-chant form with roots in the enslaved population's music, was long semi-suppressed by church and state and is now claimed as heritage; and the Seú harvest parade blends African and Catholic elements.

Society is diverse and layered — Afro-Curaçaoan, Dutch, Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jewish, Latin American, Portuguese, Lebanese, and Asian communities have all left a mark on the food, business, and street life. Roman Catholicism is the majority faith, with Protestant and Jewish minorities.

Family, the neighbourhood, Carnival groups, and the snèk (a corner bar-shop) organise daily social life, and there is a strong storytelling tradition around the trickster figure Nanzi, the spider, brought from West Africa.

About 155,000 people live in Curaçao, most in and around Willemstad, which is split by its harbour channel into the Punda and Otrobanda sides. As Dutch nationals, Curaçaoans hold EU citizenship and many move to the Netherlands to study and work, so the island has both emigration and, more recently, significant immigration from Venezuela.

The economy leans on tourism — including a large dive and cruise sector — financial and business services, ship repair at one of the region's biggest drydocks, transhipment, and the uncertain future of the refinery. Unemployment, the cost of living, and the strain of the Venezuelan influx on services are recurring concerns.

Daily life is bilingual or trilingual, car-dependent outside the compact centre, and oriented to the calm leeward beaches and the annual build-up to Carnival.

Curaçaoan cooking is Papiamentu home food with Dutch, Latin, and African threads. Keshi yena — a hollowed Edam or Gouda rind stuffed with spiced meat, olives, capers, and raisins and baked — is the signature dish, a clever use of the cheese trade. Stoba (goat, beef, or chicken stew), sòpi mondongo (tripe soup), and guiambo (a slippery okra-and-seafood soup) are everyday staples.

Funchi (polenta) and pan bati (a cornmeal pancake) are the usual accompaniments, with bakiou (salt cod), fresh fish, and kabritu (goat) as mains. Pastechi — fried pastry turnovers — are the breakfast and snack of choice, and the Old Market food stalls in Willemstad serve a full plate of the lot at lunchtime.

The island's own drink is blue Curaçao, the orange liqueur first made at the Chobolobo estate from the bitter laraha oranges that grew from Spanish sweet oranges gone feral. Amstel Bright and local beers, awa di lamunchi (limeade), and strong coffee are the everyday drinks.

Willemstad's historic centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site: the Handelskade's row of pastel merchant houses, the swinging Queen Emma pontoon bridge, the Floating Market of boats from Venezuela, Fort Amsterdam, the sand-floored synagogue, and the Kura Hulanda museum of the slave trade, spread across the Punda and Otrobanda quarters.

The long west end holds the best beaches — the twin coves of Grote and Kleine Knip (Playa Kenepa), Playa PortoMari, Cas Abao, and Playa Lagun — and the uninhabited islet of Klein Curaçao, a day-trip by boat with a lighthouse and turquoise shallows. The whole leeward coastline is a marine park, and Curaçao is one of the Caribbean's premier shore-diving destinations, with sites such as the Mushroom Forest, the Blue Room cave, and the wreck of the Tugboat.

Christoffel National Park in the northwest has hiking to Mount Christoffel, the island's highest point, and a chance of seeing the endemic Curaçao white-tailed deer; the adjoining Shete Boka park has a coastline of blowholes and turtle beaches. Inland are the Hato Caves and, in the old plantation houses (landhuizen) scattered across the island, a network of small museums and restaurants.