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The Bahamas is an independent member of the Commonwealth of Nations. It is a parliamentary democracy with regular elections. As a Commonwealth country, its political and legal traditions closely follow those of the United Kingdom. The Bahamas recognizes the British monarch as its formal head of state, while an appointed Governor General serves as the...
The Bahamas is driven by tourism and financial services. Tourism provides an estimated 40% of the gross domestic product (GDP), with an additional 10% of GDP resulting from tourist-driven construction. Tourism employs about half the Bahamian work force. In 2004, more than 5 million tourists visited The Bahamas, 87% from the United States. There are...
The 275,000 people who live in The Bahamas are predominantly of West African descent. Their ancestors were slaves brought to the islands to work the cotton plantations until 1834, when Britain abolished slavery in all its territories. Most white residents of are descendants of the first English settlers, who emigrated from Bermuda in 1647 to gain religious...
In 1492, Christopher Columbus made his first landfall in the Western Hemisphere at either Samana Cay or San Salvador Island in The Bahamas. Spanish slave traders later captured native Lucayan Indians to work in gold mines in Hispaniola, and, within 25 years, all Lucayans perished. In 1647, a group of English and Bermudan religious refugees, the Eleutheran...
Location: Caribbean, chain of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean, southeast of Florida Geographic coordinates: 24 15 N, 76 00 W Map references: Central America and the Caribbean Area: total: 13,940 sq km land: 10,070 sq km water: 3,870 sq km Area #151;comparative: slightly smaller than Connecticut Land boundaries: 0 km Coastline: 3,542 km Maritime...
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 as a staging area for the slave trade in the early 1800s. Others accompanied thousands of British loyalists who fled the American...
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