Curaçao

Curaçao is an island in the Caribbean Sea.

It is close to South America. The capital is Willemstad. People speak Papiamentu, Dutch and English.

Curaçao lies in the southern Caribbean Sea, about 60 kilometers north of the coast of Venezuela. Its neighbors Aruba and Bonaire are nearby.

Curaçao is a country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Dutch king is head of state, but Curaçao has its own prime minister and parliament to run things at home, while the Kingdom looks after defense and relations with other countries. Papiamentu, Dutch and English are all official languages, and the capital is Willemstad.

Britannica describes Curaçao as an island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, about 60 km north of Venezuela; though it sits on the South American continental shelf, it and its neighbors are usually counted as the southwestern arc of the Lesser Antilles.

The Dutch monarch is head of state, represented by a governor; a prime minister and Council of Ministers hold executive power, and the 21-member Parliament (Staten) is elected by proportional representation. Curaçao is largely autonomous in domestic affairs, while the Kingdom remains responsible for defense, foreign relations and certain other matters. Dutch, Papiamentu and English are official, and Curaçao shares its guilder currency with Sint Maarten.

Willemstad has houses painted yellow, blue, pink and green.

They stand in a row beside the water. Ships sail right through the middle of the town.

Willemstad grew around one of the best natural harbors in the Caribbean. A channel called Sint Anna Bay runs through the town to a big, sheltered bay behind it, splitting the old center into two sides, Punda and Otrobanda.

The Dutch began the town in 1634 by building Fort Amsterdam. Its historic districts are famous for buildings painted red, blue, yellow and green, some with curved Dutch gables. In 1997 the historic area became a UNESCO World Heritage site. The photos show the Handelskade, Willemstad's colorful waterfront.

UNESCO's listing describes Willemstad as a colonial trading and administrative settlement that began with Fort Amsterdam (1634) on the east bank of Sint Anna Bay, the channel that leads through the reefs to the deep, almost enclosed Schottegat. Punda, the oldest district, dates from the 17th century and was the only one walled; Pietermaai, Otrobanda and Scharloo date from the 18th.

The tradition of colorful exteriors in red, blue, yellow ochre and green continues, and a distinctive Curaçao Baroque style uses the curved Dutch gable, best known on the Penha Building of 1708, the yellow building at right in the hero photo. The 86-hectare site was inscribed in 1997. UNESCO notes damage from a 1960s highway and the access roads of the Queen Juliana Bridge (1974), and pressure from tourism development.

Curaçao is warm and dry.

The tallest hill is in a big national park. On the north coast, huge waves crash into rocky bays.

Curaçao gets little rain and has little rich soil. Most of its drinking water is made by taking the salt out of seawater.

In the west, Christoffel National Park is the island's largest park and has its highest peak, Christoffel Mountain. Beside it, Shete Boka National Park protects almost 10 kilometers of rocky north coast, where huge waves thunder into a cave at Boka Tabla. Coral reefs grow off the island, and the Curaçao Marine Park works to protect and restore them.

Britannica notes scant rainfall and little fertile soil, and that most drinking water comes from seawater desalination. The research foundation CARMABI, founded in 1955 as a marine research institute, manages five national parks. Christoffel National Park, the largest and most biodiverse, holds the highest peak, Christoffelberg (375 m in Wikidata).

Shete Boka National Park, established in 1994, covers almost 10 km of the rocky, wave-exposed north coast, where waves thunder into an underground cavern at Boka Tabla and limestone bluffs and a natural bridge at Boka Wandomi line the shore. The Curaçao Marine Park conserves the island's coral reefs and supports coral restoration research, and the Rif Mangrove Park protects mangroves in the city.

White-tailed deer live in Curaçao's big national park.

Sea turtles swim to small beaches to lay their eggs.

The white-tailed deer is Curaçao's national animal, and it lives in Christoffel National Park, along with many birds and plants that are hard to see elsewhere on the island.

On the north coast, three kinds of sea turtles lay their eggs in about ten small bays in Shete Boka National Park, mostly between May and December. Scientists check the beaches for signs of nesting. The deer photo here was taken in Missouri, in the United States, and the turtle photo in Egypt.

The Christoffel park describes the white-tailed deer as the national deer and the park as the island's most biodiverse, with birds and plants not easily seen elsewhere on Curaçao.

Shete Boka National Park was established in 1994 to protect sea turtle nesting areas: about 10 pocket bays where three species are known to lay eggs. CARMABI researchers monitor the beaches through the nesting season, roughly May to December. The deer photo shows a white-tailed doe in Missouri, United States, and the hawksbill photo was taken at Ras Muhammad, Egypt.

People here speak Papiamentu, Dutch and English.

Big ships come to the harbor. Many visitors come to see the colorful town.

The 2023 census counted 155,826 people. Papiamentu, Dutch and English are all official languages. Curaçao's people have roots in Africa, Europe, South America and elsewhere.

For much of the 1900s, oil from Venezuela was refined here, but the refinery closed in 2019. Today tourism, trade, shipping, port services and financial services drive the economy, and aloe plants are still grown for medicines.

Curaçao's Central Bureau of Statistics counted 155,826 people in the census of 2 September 2023 and estimated 156,115 on 1 January 2025. UNESCO notes that Afro-American, Iberian and Caribbean inhabitants enriched Willemstad's building traditions and cultural life; Britannica records Sephardic Jewish immigrants from Amsterdam and Dutch Brazil from the mid-17th century, forming one of the oldest Jewish communities in the Americas.

Britannica traces the 20th-century economy to refining Venezuelan oil, which made Willemstad one of the Caribbean's principal ports, with dry docks, bunkering and storage; the sector declined after the Isla refinery closed in 2019. Today tourism, international trade, shipping and port services and financial services drive the economy, and aloes, first brought from Africa, are still exported for pharmaceutical uses.