Barbados Country Info - North America

Description and Basic Information

Barbados with its capital Bridgetown is located in North America (Caribbean, island in the North Atlantic Ocean). It covers some 432 square kilometres (2.5 times the size of Washington, DC) with 281,000 citizens. English is the language used in Barbados.

Barbados is an island in the Caribbean, northeast of Venezuela. The island is portrayed as the Little Britain of the Caribbean because of its long association as a British colony. The name Barbados comes from a Portuguese explorer named Pedro Campos in 1536, who originally called the island Los Barbados (The Bearded Ones), after the appearance of the island's fig trees, whose long hanging aerial roots resembled beards. Driving is on the left. The bus system is extensive, cheap, and fast - if you're headed to somewhere on the main route - but a car (or mini-moke) is the only way to see many of the out-of-the-way sights. The local currency is the Bajan dollar, but US dollars are accepted just about everywhere in shops and restaurants. The exchange rate is fixed at 1.98 Bajan dollars to the US Dollar but almost everyone uses US$1 = BD$2.

Pictures from Capital (Bridgetown)

Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners.

About Barbados

The topography features relatively flat with rises gently to central highland region. The average density of population is about 651 per km². The climate in Barbados can be described as tropical with rainy season (June to October). Potential natural disasters are infrequent hurricanes or periodic landslides.

To reach someone in Barbados dial +1-246 prior to a number. There are 135,700 installed telephones. And there are 337,100 registered mobile phones. The cellular networks operate on frequencies of 900, 1800, 1900 Mhz. Websites typically end with the top level domain ".bb". If you want to bring electric appliances (e.g. battery charger), keep in mind the local 115V - 50Hz. The following list are the 12 regions/states in Barbados we know off.

Demographic Statistics

In the year 2010, the total Barbadian population grew at a rate of 0.37% (or by 1,068 citizens). With 2,397 deaths and 3,551 babies born, the natural increase rate lies at 0.4%. -86 persons more in total emmigrated from the country than immigrated.

An overview of age distribution in Barbados: Each pair of bars represents a single age group (male/female). Each group is spanning 5 years. E.g. 0 to 5 years, 5 to 10 etc. and group "0 to 5" being at the left end and "100 +" at the right end of the chart.

Based on content from wikitravel.org. The original article can be found here based on the work of these users.
Geographic information is based on the data provided by geonames.org, CIA factsbook and Unesco.