- Population:
- 301,865
- Religion:
- Christianity
Barbados is an eastern Caribbean island and an independent British Commonwealth nation. Bridgetown the capital is a cruise-ship port with colonial buildings and Nidhe Israel a synagogue founded in 1654. Around the island are beaches botanical gardens the Harrison’s Cave formation and 17th-century plantation houses like St. Nicholas Abbey. Local traditions include afternoon tea and cricket the national sport.
The island was uninhabited when first settled by the British in 1627. African slaves worked the sugar plantations established on the island until 1834 when slavery was abolished. The economy remained heavily dependent on sugar rum and molasses production through most of the 20th century. The gradual introduction of social and political reforms in the 1940s and 1950s led to complete independence from the UK in 1966. In the 1990s tourism and manufacturing surpassed the sugar industry in economic importance.
