Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Saint Vincent is a green island with tall mountains.

The Grenadines are a line of small islands near it. Together they make one country.

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is a country in the Lesser Antilles, the curve of small islands in the eastern Caribbean Sea. Its main island, Saint Vincent, is 30 kilometers long and 18 kilometers wide at its widest. South of it lie the northern Grenadines, such as Bequia, Mustique, Canouan and Union Island.

English is the official language, and the money is the Eastern Caribbean dollar. The capital is Kingstown. The 2023 census counted 109,296 people. The photo shows Kingstown's houses climbing the green hills above the harbor.

The state covers about 389 km²: Saint Vincent, 30 km long and up to 18 km wide, lying about 32 km southwest of Saint Lucia and 160 km west of Barbados, plus the northern Grenadine Islands, including Bequia, Canouan, Mayreau, Mustique, Prune (Palm) Island, Petit Saint Vincent and Union Island. The name Saint Vincent once covered the whole group; the country took its present name at independence in 1979.

The Statistical Office's 2023 census, the 16th, counted 109,296 people, slightly fewer than the 109,991 of 2012, a drop of about 0.6 percent. It is a constitutional monarchy in the Commonwealth with one legislative house, the House of Assembly. The photo shows Kingstown from the harbor.

Kingstown is the capital city. It sits by a harbor.

Its gardens got the first breadfruit trees brought from the Pacific.

Kingstown, on the southwest end of Saint Vincent, is the capital and main port. It has a deepwater port, and cruise ships can tie up at a special berth. Its Botanic Gardens, started in 1765, are the oldest in the West Indies. In 1793 Captain William Bligh brought the first breadfruit trees from the Pacific to them.

The Grenadines are famous for coral reefs, fine beaches and sailing. The Tobago Cays, a group of tiny islands near Mayreau, are protected as a wildlife reserve.

Kingstown overlooks Kingstown Harbour, sheltered by Berkshire Hill to the north and Cane Garden Point to the south; it has a deepwater port and a cruise-ship berth, built to help the tourist trade grow. Its Botanic Gardens (1765) are the oldest in the West Indies and received the first breadfruit trees from the Pacific, brought by Capt. William Bligh in 1793.

The main airport, Argyle International, is in the southeast of Saint Vincent, and several Grenadines have airstrips. The Grenadines, noted for coral reefs and beaches, are the focus of tourism, especially yachting and sport fishing; Mustique is privately owned by a group of landowners. The Tobago Cays, just east of Mayreau, are a wildlife reserve.

La Soufrière is a volcano in the north of Saint Vincent.

It woke up in 2020 and blew out ash in 2021. Forests cover the island's mountains.

Thick forests cover the volcanic mountains that run from north to south down Saint Vincent, and many short, fast streams flow down their sides. In the north stands La Soufrière, 1,220 meters high. Big eruptions came in 1812, 1902 and 1979, and its latest eruption began in December 2020. In April 2021 explosions sent ash up to 16 kilometers into the sky, and people living near the volcano moved away to stay safe.

The climate is warm and tropical. The dry season lasts from January to May, and rain falls from June to the end of the year.

Saint Vincent's wooded volcanic mountains run north-south; the streams are numerous but small, and none is navigable. Soufrière St. Vincent, the island's northernmost and youngest volcano, rises to 1,220 m (Global Volcanism Program; Britannica gives two summits of 1,234 m and 1,178 m). Eruptions in 1812, 1902 and 1979 damaged farms and forced evacuations. The latest began on December 27, 2020, with a new lava dome; on April 9, 2021 the explosive phase began, with plumes up to 16 km high that destroyed the 1979 and 2020–21 domes, and ash reached Barbados and Saint Lucia. The alert level returned to green in March 2022.

Rain ranges from about 1,500 mm a year on the coast to 3,800 mm in the central mountains, heavier on the windward east. Kingstown's temperatures average between about 18 and 32 °C.

The Saint Vincent parrot lives only here.

It was picked as the national bird in 1979. Coral reefs grow around the small islands.

The Saint Vincent parrot, Amazona guildingii, lives in the wild only in this country, and it became the national bird in 1979. A count in 2010 found about 850 to 900 parrots in the wild, more than the roughly 400 of the early 1980s. In 2019 forestry officials announced that two parrots born in Germany, from Saint Vincent parents, would be flown home to join the island's birds.

Birdlife on Saint Vincent is especially rich, and bright plants such as hibiscus and poinsettia grow there. Around the Grenadines lie coral reefs, and the Tobago Cays are a protected wildlife reserve. The photo shows the open Caribbean Sea; where it was taken is not recorded.

The St. Vincent amazon (Amazona guildingii) is endemic to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and was declared the national bird in 1979. A 2010 census estimated 850–900 wild birds, up from about 400 in the early 1980s but far below the more than 3,000 of the 1960s and 1970s (Forestry Department, reported by Searchlight, 2019). Under a 2011 breeding-loan agreement, 15 parrots went to the ACTP in Berlin; in February 2019 the Forestry Department announced that two males born there would be flown home to enrich the island's gene pool.

Britannica notes especially rich birdlife and striking plants such as hibiscus and poinsettia. The Grenadines are noted for coral reefs, and the Tobago Cays, east of Mayreau, are a wildlife reserve. The photo is a long exposure of the Caribbean Sea; its location is not recorded.

Most people speak English.

Farmers grow root crops such as dasheen. Many visitors come to sail around the islands.

In the 2023 census about eight in ten people were of African descent; many are descended from Africans who were enslaved and brought to work on sugar plantations. About one in eight have mixed ancestry, and about one in twenty are Indigenous people. English is the official language, and many people also speak an English-based local language.

For more than 50 years bananas were the main export, until the banana trade faded after special trade deals ended. In 2023 the country named dasheen, a root crop, its future "Blue Gold." Arrowroot, which Saint Vincent once exported more of than anywhere else, is still grown in the northeast. Tourism centers on the Grenadines.

In the 2023 census, 79.3 percent of people identified as of African descent, 12.9 percent as Mixed and 5.1 percent as Indigenous, with small East Indian, white and Portuguese groups; the Mixed share had fallen from 23.0 percent in 2012. Many Vincentians descend from enslaved Africans brought to the sugar plantations, and people of mixed African and Carib descent are known as the Garifuna. English is official, and an English-based patois, called 'nation language' by some scholars, is widely spoken. In 2023, 78.1 percent were Christian and 14.0 percent reported no religion.

Bananas, the leading export crop from the 1950s, declined as an export industry after trade preferences were removed; in 2023 dasheen (a taro) was declared the country's future "Blue Gold," sold in the region, the United States, the United Kingdom and France. Arrowroot, of which Saint Vincent was once the greatest exporter, is still grown in the northeast. The 2023 census found 9.1 percent of employed people in agricultural occupations, down from 11.8 percent in 2012, and 95.4 percent of children aged 3 to 14 attending school.