Welcome to Saint Vincent and the
Grenadines!
Research
Topic: Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Focus:
Tourism
Saint
Vincent (St. Vincent) and the Grenadines is a small West Indies island country located
in the Caribbean Sea. The country consists of about 100 small islands in the
Grenadine chain. The Grenadines are a chain of islands that are a subdivision of Saint
Vincent and Grenada. According to World Book Encyclopedia, there are 32
islands and cays (low elevated sandy islands on the surface of a coral reef) that
make up St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The largest city in St.
Vincent is Kingston and it is also the capital (“Saint Vincent”).
Saint
Vincent was formed from a volcano and much of the island is covered with
tropical plants forests. It stretches 150 square miles and has population of
122,000. Most of the residents are decedents of Black Africans who were brought
to the country by French and British settlers as slaves. Gonsalves reported, “Arawak
Indians were the first to occupy the island” (N.p.). France was the first
European country to occupy the islands. However, after a series of wars during
the 1600 and 1700s and peace treaties signed, in 1763 St. Vincent was
relinquished to Britain by the Treaty of Paris. St. Vincent eventually gained
its independence from Britain in 1979. In 1983 St. Vincent and the Grenadines
joined forces with the United States and invaded Granada for the purpose of
overthrowing the Marxists government.
Peters
shared, the ethnic composition consists of 66% Africans, 19% of mixed descent,
6% East Indian, 4% European, 2% Caribbean and 3% others. About fifty percent
(50%) of the people live in urban area and the other half live in rural areas.
English is the official language, but many people also speak a patois dialect consisting of a mixture
of French and African languages. Many people live in small villages and they
work on farms (1). Eighty-one percent (81%) of the people are Christians and
seven percent (7%) are other religion, and the remaining do not practice
religion.
Agriculture
and tourism are the main economic activities on the island. The chief products
are Arrowroot (a plant which roots are made into starch) and bananas. Most of
the country’s tourism occurs in the Grenadines. The monetary form is the dollar
and they have a Constitutional monarchy form of government. The climate in St.
Vincent is warm and wet with the heaviest rainfall in the mountains.
Temperature does not rise above ninety degrees (90) or fall below sixty-five (65)
degrees (World Book Encyclopedia).
