Bermuda

Bermuda is in the Atlantic Ocean.

It is made of many small islands close together. The capital is Hamilton. People speak English.

Bermuda is a group of islands far out in the North Atlantic Ocean, about 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) north of the Caribbean. All together, the land covers only about 53 square kilometers.

Bermuda is a British Overseas Territory. It runs most of its own affairs and has its own parliament, which first met in 1620. English is the language, the Bermudian dollar is the money, and the capital is Hamilton.

The Government of Bermuda calls Bermuda the oldest self-governing British Overseas Territory, with a great degree of internal autonomy; its parliament held its first session in 1620, making it, in the government's words, the third-oldest continuous parliament in the world. The islands lie in the North Atlantic, which the Bermuda Tourism Authority puts about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) north of the Caribbean.

The Department of Statistics' 2016 census counted 63,779 people, with a median age of 44 (up from 41) and 79% Bermudian. A new census, held once every ten years, took May 20, 2026, as its reference day and began on May 21.

Hamilton is the capital. Its shops are painted pink and yellow.

St. George's is a very old town. It was the first capital.

Hamilton, the capital since 1815, is near the middle of the islands. The photo shows Front Street, with pink, cream and yellow buildings, white roofs, balconies and people walking along the sidewalk.

St. George's, at the eastern end, was founded in 1612 and was the first capital. UNESCO calls it the earliest English colonial town in the New World, and it is a World Heritage Site with its old forts. At the western end, the old Royal Naval Dockyard now holds museums.

Hamilton became the capital in 1815, replacing St. George's. The hero photo shows Front Street at the corner of Queen Street, lined with pastel commercial buildings with white roofs and columned verandas.

The Town of St George, settled permanently from August 1612, was inscribed by UNESCO in 2000, with its fortifications, as the earliest example of an English colonial town in the New World; its forts show English military engineering from the 17th to the 20th century, and its heart is King's Square beside the harbor. The Royal Navy left Bermuda by 1951, and the Royal Naval Dockyard in the west now houses the National Museum of Bermuda.

Bermuda sits on top of a very old volcano under the sea.

Its hills were once sand dunes. A warm ocean current keeps it mild all year.

Bermuda sits on top of an old volcano that rises about 4,000 meters from the ocean floor. The volcano stopped erupting about 30 million years ago, and the sea wore its top away. Now an oval cap of limestone, about 35 by 18 kilometers, covers it, and Bermuda's hills are old sand dunes that turned to stone.

The warm Gulf Stream flows past, so the weather stays mild: daytime highs average about 18 °C in January and 29 °C in July. There is no rainy season, and big hurricanes hit only now and then.

A Carleton University geology account describes a truncated volcanic seamount rising about 4,000 m from the Atlantic floor; dated basalt shows it began forming on or near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge about 110 million years ago and has since moved west with its plate. Major eruptions ended about 30 million years ago, and the volcanic rock now lies an average of 75 m below sea level (30 m at its shallowest). An oval limestone platform about 35 by 18 km caps it, partly drowned to form lagoons, bays and sounds; the hills are lithified sand dunes.

The Bermuda Tourism Authority credits the Gulf Stream and the Bermuda-Azores High for a temperate, subtropical climate, with average daytime highs of 65 °F (18 °C) in January and 84 °F (29 °C) in July and no rainy season. It counts only 12 storms making landfall since 1850.

The cahow is a seabird that lives only in Bermuda.

People thought it was gone forever. Then a few were found again! Now people help them nest safely.

The cahow, or Bermuda petrel, is Bermuda's national bird and lives nowhere else. There may once have been more than half a million. After people arrived in the 1600s with rats, cats, dogs and pigs, the cahow seemed to vanish, until 18 nesting pairs were found again on tiny islands.

Since 1960 a recovery program has protected them. Cahows have been moved to Nonsuch Island, a nature reserve where people replanted native plants and brought back animals such as the land hermit crab. Tracking showed cahows fly thousands of kilometers to find food.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources describes the cahow (Pterodroma cahow), the national bird, as an endemic and one of the rarest seabirds on Earth. Once perhaps more than half a million strong, it was devastated within 20 years of settlement in the 1600s by people and introduced rats, cats, dogs and pigs, and was thought extinct until 18 nesting pairs were rediscovered on four tiny islets. A recovery program since 1960 raised numbers from 18 pairs in the 1960s to a record 92 pairs fledging 52 chicks in 2010, using nest baffles, rat control and translocation of chicks to Nonsuch Island. Geolocators showed birds flying to waters off Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and the Azores, up to 80,000 miles in a year.

Nonsuch, restored since 1962 by Bermuda's first conservation officer, David Wingate, has seen the yellow-crowned night heron, West Indian top shell, land hermit crab and cahow reintroduced.

Bermuda's houses have white stone roofs.

The roofs catch rain for drinking water. In summer, a big cricket festival called Cup Match is a favorite holiday.

Bermuda's houses are known for their thick limestone walls and white stepped roofs. After a storm in 1712, a law said walls and roofs must be stone, not wood. The roofs also collect rainwater, which flows through pipes into tanks under the house for drinking.

The first day of Cup Match, every summer, is Emancipation Day, marking the end of slavery, and it is one of the biggest celebrations of the year. Visitors come for the pink-sand beaches, sailing and cricket.

The Bermuda Tourism Authority traces the island's stone building style to a 1712 storm, after which the law required stone walls and roofs; heavy, white, stepped limestone roofs channel rainwater through pipes into underground tanks, a key freshwater supply. The 2016 census found 79% of residents were Bermudian and a median age of 44.

From the 1600s, enslaved people, including Africans and Native Americans, were brought to the islands; slavery was abolished across the British Empire in 1834 (the act was passed in 1833). The first day of Cup Match, the summer cricket holiday, is kept as Emancipation Day and is among the year's biggest celebrations.