Grenada

Grenada is an island in the Caribbean Sea.

It is shaped like an oval. Green mountains run down the middle.

Grenada is an oval island about 34 kilometers long and 19 kilometers wide, in the eastern Caribbean Sea about 160 kilometers north of Venezuela. It is the southernmost island of the Lesser Antilles, a long arc of islands in the eastern Caribbean.

The country also includes Carriacou and Petite Martinique, small islands of the southern Grenadines. English is the official language, and the currency is the Eastern Caribbean dollar. A 2021 census counted 109,021 people. The photo looks over St. George's and its harbor, with a cruise ship just offshore.

Grenada is the southernmost island of the north–south arc of the Lesser Antilles, about 160 km off Venezuela; oval, it measures about 34 by 19 km. The southern Grenadines, the largest of which is Carriacou (34 km², about 32 km north-northeast), are a dependency.

The Central Statistical Office's preliminary results of the 2021 census counted 109,021 people, up from 106,669 in 2011. Grenada is a constitutional monarchy within the Commonwealth: the British monarch, represented by a governor-general, is head of state, and the prime minister leads the majority party in the elected House of Representatives. The photo shows St. George's from the hills, with the harbor and a cruise ship.

St. George's is the capital city.

Colorful houses climb the hills above the harbor.

St. George's, on the southwest coast, is the capital and main port. Its pastel-colored houses rise up the hillsides from a fine natural harbor. The waterfront is called the Carenage, because island sailing ships were once pulled onto the shore there for cleaning and repair.

St. George's is a center for yachts and charter boats, and many cruise ships visit. The Grenada National Museum, about archaeology and history, is in the city, and Carriacou has its own airport.

St. George's, on the southwest coast, is the capital and main port, with a natural harbor, berths for oceangoing ships and a yacht basin; Britannica calls it the yachting and charter-boat center of the eastern Caribbean. The Carenage takes its name from careening, beaching schooners for cleaning or repair.

An international airport at Point Salines opened in 1984, and Carriacou has its own airport. St. George's University School of Medicine and a branch of the University of the West Indies are on the island. The Grenada National Museum in St. George's houses the Grenada Historical Society.

Grenada was made by volcanoes.

A lake sits inside an old volcano. It is warm all year.

Grenada is volcanic. A ridge of mountains runs north to south, with steep slopes to the west and gentler ones to the east. The highest point is Mount St. Catherine, 840 meters. Grand Etang, a lake in the crater of an extinct volcano, sits 530 meters up.

Short, fast streams bring clean water to towns and villages. It averages about 28 °C, and the rainy season lasts from June to December. Forests of teak, mahogany and saman trees grow inside the island.

A north–south mountain ridge dominates the island, steeper to the west and more gradual to the east and southeast, with deep, steep-sided valleys and about 4,000 ha of forest. Mount St. Catherine, in the northern interior, reaches 840 m. Grand Etang, covering about 36 acres (15 ha) in the crater of an extinct volcano at 530 m, is a water source; soils are mainly volcanic, with some limestone in the north.

Temperatures average about 28 °C. Rainfall ranges from about 1,500 mm on the coasts to more than 3,810 mm in the mountains; the rainy season runs June–December. Grenada lies south of the usual hurricane track, but hurricanes in 1955, 1979 and 1980, and Ivan in 2004, caused extensive damage. The photo is a long exposure of the Caribbean Sea, not taken in Grenada.

Small monkeys called mona monkeys live in Grenada's forests.

Iguanas, turtles and land crabs live there too.

Grenada's wild animals include the mona monkey, a small, long-tailed monkey from West Africa that was brought to the island long ago. The manicou, a kind of opossum, and the agouti, a brown, rabbit-sized rodent, also live there.

Iguanas, turtles and land crabs are found too, along with the mongoose. Inside the island grow forests of teak, mahogany, saman (the rain tree) and blue mahoe.

Britannica lists the mona monkey (a small, long-tailed West African species introduced by enslaved people), the manicou (an opossum), the agouti (a rabbit-sized rodent, brown or grizzled), the iguana, the introduced mongoose and a variety of turtles and land crabs.

The island is green all year, with tropical fruits, flowering shrubs and ferns, and interior forests of teak, mahogany, saman (rain tree) and blue mahoe, a strong-fibred tree. Forests yield mostly teak and mahogany timber.

Farmers in Grenada grow nutmeg, cocoa and bananas.

People speak English. Many families farm small plots on the hills.

Most Grenadians are descended from Africans who were brought to the island and enslaved. There are also people of mixed heritage, descendants of workers from India, and descendants of French and British settlers. English is the official language, and Grenadian Creole English is spoken too.

Much of the farmland is split into small family plots on hilly ground, where farmers grow cocoa, bananas, nutmeg and mace, plus mangoes, passion fruit and other fruits. The nutmeg, one of the island's chief products, appears on Grenada's flag.

Most of the population is Black, descended from enslaved Africans, with a large mixed minority and small East Indian (descendants of indentured labourers), French- and British-descended and recent immigrant communities. Nearly half are Protestant and more than a third Roman Catholic.

Arable land is unusually divided into small holdings farmed by owner-cultivators; with these small plots and the hilly ground, mechanical tilling is rare. Britannica lists cocoa, bananas, nutmeg and mace as the traditional export crops, and tourism as the other main sector. Painters Elinus Cato and Canute Caliste won international recognition for primitive-style art. The national flag, hoisted at midnight on February 6–7, 1974, carries a nutmeg symbol, green for vegetation, yellow for wisdom and the sun, and seven stars for the original administrative subdivisions.