Antigua and Barbuda

Antigua and Barbuda is made of islands in the Caribbean Sea.

Antigua is the biggest one. Barbuda is flat, with many trees. People speak English.

Antigua and Barbuda is an island country in the Lesser Antilles, at the southern end of the chain called the Leeward Islands. Antigua is the largest island; Barbuda lies about 40 kilometers to the north, and the tiny rock of Redonda about 40 kilometers to the southwest.

English is the official language. The capital, St. John's, is on Antigua. The statistics office estimates that 106,365 people live in the country (2026). The photo shows St. John's, with cruise ships in its harbor.

Britannica describes an independent state in the Lesser Antilles at the southern end of the Leeward Islands chain: Antigua (280 km²), Barbuda (161 km², 40 km north) and the dependency of Redonda, an uninhabited rock 40 km southwest of Antigua; about 442 km² in all.

The last census was taken in 2011, and fieldwork for the next began in 2025, so the National Bureau of Statistics' current estimate, 106,365 (2026), is the official figure. English is the official language and the currency is the Eastern Caribbean dollar. The photo shows downtown St. John's and cruise ships in the harbor.

St. John's is the capital city.

Big ships come to its harbor. English Harbour has old navy buildings by the sea.

St. John's, on Antigua's northwest coast, is the capital and has a deepwater harbor where big ships can dock. The international airport is nearby.

On the south coast, English Harbour is a deep, narrow bay surrounded by hills that sheltered ships from hurricanes. The British navy built a dockyard there, with work done by enslaved Africans. Its Georgian-style buildings are now a World Heritage Site. On Barbuda, Codrington is the only village, beside a lagoon.

St. John's has a deepwater harbor, and an international airport lies nearby; Parham and English Harbour are other sheltered inlets. UNESCO inscribed the Antigua Naval Dockyard and Related Archaeological Sites in 2016: Georgian naval buildings in a walled enclosure on deep, narrow bays ringed by fortified hills, in use since 1725. UNESCO stresses that the dockyard was built and worked by generations of enslaved Africans, to protect sugar planters' interests while European powers fought for the eastern Caribbean. Clarence House shows English Georgian design adapted to a hot climate.

The area has been a national park since 1984. On Barbuda, Codrington, the only settlement, lies on a lagoon on the west side.

Antigua has many bays.

Coral reefs are close to shore. There are no rivers. It is warm all year.

Antigua's coast is full of bays and headlands, with coral reefs offshore. Most of the island is low, rolling land, but volcanic rocks in the west rise to Mount Obama, 405 meters high.

There are no rivers and only a few springs, so dry spells can happen even though about 1,000 millimeters of rain fall in a year. Barbuda is flat coral rock with no streams or lakes; its highest point is only 44 meters. It is warm all year: about 25 °C in January and 28 °C in August.

Antigua's intricate coastline of bays and headlands is fringed with reefs and shoals. The island is mostly low and undulating; volcanic rocks in the west reach 405 m at Mount Obama (formerly Boggy Peak), and Britannica notes that its lack of mountains and forests sets it apart from the other Leeward Islands. With no rivers and few springs, droughts occur despite a mean annual rainfall of about 1,000 mm.

Barbuda is a flat, well-wooded coral island rising to 44 m at Lindsay Hill, with no streams or lakes and less rain than Antigua. Redonda rises sheer to 305 m and holds phosphate deposits. January averages about 25 °C and August 28 °C, with summer highs near 32 °C.

Big black seabirds called frigatebirds nest on Barbuda.

A gentle snake called the Antiguan racer lives only here. People helped it come back.

Magnificent frigatebirds nest in a colony at Codrington Lagoon on Barbuda. A count in 2008 found 1,743 nests and more than 5,000 birds, the biggest colony in the Caribbean.

The Antiguan racer is a harmless snake found only in this country. Rats and mongooses brought to the islands nearly wiped it out: by 1995 only about 50 were left on one small island. Conservationists cleared the rats from offshore islands and moved snakes there, and today there are more than 1,100. Brown pelicans have come back too. The pelican in the photo was photographed in California.

The Journal of Caribbean Ornithology reports that a complete 2008 census of the Magnificent Frigatebird (Fregata magnificens) colony at Codrington Lagoon found 1,743 nests and over 5,000 birds, confirming it as the largest in the Caribbean. The species is considered one of the region's most threatened seabirds because half of its historic coastal nesting and roosting sites have disappeared.

The Critically Endangered Antiguan racer, endemic to the country, declined after mongooses were introduced in the 1890s to control rats in sugarcane; declared extinct in the 1930s, it survived on Great Bird Island, an 8.4-hectare cay. Fauna & Flora reports about 50 in 1995 and over 1,100 at four sites today, after invasive species were removed from 15 islands. The brown pelican photo was taken at Bodega Head, California.

Most people have African ancestors.

A famous cricket player, Viv Richards, was born here. Lots of visitors come to the islands.

Most people in Antigua and Barbuda have African ancestors. English is the language of the country, and the largest church is the Anglican Church.

In cricket, Viv Richards, born in St. John's in 1952, played for the West Indies for nearly 20 years and is remembered as one of the most feared batters of all time. The writer Jamaica Kincaid, also born in St. John's, wrote novels drawn from her own life, about family and her home island. Tourism is now the main business; on Barbuda, people have long lived by fishing and small farms.

The majority of the population is of African descent; about two-thirds are Christian, with Anglicans the largest denomination, alongside Seventh-day Adventists, Pentecostals, Moravians and Methodists. Primary and postprimary education is compulsory.

Viv Richards (born 1952 in St. John's), whom Britannica calls arguably the finest batsman of his generation, played 121 Tests for the West Indies from 1974 to 1993. Jamaica Kincaid (born 1949 in St. John's) portrays family life and her native Antigua in works such as Annie John (1984). Tourism has largely replaced agriculture; sugarcane, long dominant on Antigua, is now insignificant, and fruits such as citrus, mangoes and eggplants are grown. Barbuda never had sugar plantations; its people were fishers and subsistence farmers with their own land system.