Visit Barbados

Visit Barbados

Barbados is a sovereign island countryin the Lesser Antilles, in the Americas. It is 34 kilometres (21 mi) in length and up to 23 kilometres (14 mi) in width, covering an area of 432 square kilometres (167 sq mi). It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres (62 mi) east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about 168 kilometres (104 mi) east of the islands of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and 400 kilometres (250 mi) north-east of Trinidad and Tobago.

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Barbados is outside of the principal Atlantic hurricane belt.Inhabited by Kalingo people since the 13th century, and prior to that by otherAmerindians, Barbados was visited by Spanish navigators in the late 15th century and claimed for the Spanish Crown.

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It first appears on a Spanish map from 1511. The Portuguese visited the island in 1536, but they left it unclaimed, with their only remnants being an introduction of wild hogs for a good supply of meat whenever the island was visited. An English ship, the Olive Blossom, arrived in Barbados in 1625; its men took possession of it in the name of King James I. In 1627, the first permanent settlers arrived from England, and it became an English and later British colony. In 1966, Barbados became an independent state and Commonwealth realmwith the British Monarch (presently Queen Elizabeth II) as hereditary head of state. It has a population of 277,821 people, mostly of African descent.

Despite being classified as an Atlantic island, Barbados is considered to be a part of the Caribbean, where it is ranked as a leading tourist destination. In 2014, Barbados ranked second in the Americas (after Canada) and 17th globally (after Belgium and Japan) on Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index. The origin of the name Barbados is either the Portuguese word Barbados or the Spanish equivalent los Barbados, both meaning "the bearded ones". It is unclear whether "bearded" refers to the long, hanging roots of the bearded fig-tree (Ficus citrifolia), indigenous to the island; or to the allegedly beardedCaribs once inhabiting the island; or, more fancifully, to a visual impression of a beard formed by the sea foam that sprays over the outlying reefs. Visit Barbados

In 1519, a map produced by the Genoese mapmaker Visconte Maggiolo showed and named Barbados in its correct position. Furthermore, the island of Barbuda in the Leewards is very similar in name and was once named Las Barbudas by the Spanish.It is uncertain which European nation arrived first in Barbados. According to some sources it was the Spanish. Others believe the Portuguese, en route to Brazil, were the first Europeans to come upon the island.The original name for Barbados in the Pre-Columbian era was Ichirouganaim according to accounts by descendants of the indigenous Arawakan-speaking tribes in other regional areas, with possible translations including "Red land with white teeth", "Redstone island with teeth outside (reefs)", or simply "Teeth".Other names or nicknames associated with Barbados include "Bim" and "Bimshire". Visit Barbados

The origin is uncertain but several theories exist. The National Cultural Foundation of Barbados says that "Bim" was a word commonly used by slaves and that it derives from the Igbo term bém from bé m?´ meaning 'my home, kindred, kind', the Igbo phoneme /e/ in the Igbo orthography is very close to . The name could have arisen due to the relatively large percentage of enslaved Igbo people from modern-day southeastern Nigeria arriving in Barbados in the 18th century. The words 'Bim' and 'Bimshire' are recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary and Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionaries. Another possible source for 'Bim' is reported to be in the Agricultural Reporter of 25 April 1868, where the Rev. N. Greenidge (father of one of the island's most famous scholars, Abel Hendy Jones Greenidge) suggested the listing of Bimshire as a county of England. Visit Barbados

Expressly named were "Wiltshire, Hampshire, Berkshire and Bimshire". Lastly, in theDaily Argosy (of Demerara, i.e. Guyana) of 1652 there is a reference to Bim as a possible corruption of 'Byam', the name of a Royalist leader against the Parliamentarians. That source suggested the followers of Byam became known as 'Bims' and that this became a word for all Barbadians. English is the official language of Barbados, and is used for communications, administration, and public services all over the island. In its capacity as the official language of the country, the standard of English tends to conform to the vocabulary, pronunciations, spellings, and conventions akin to, but not exactly the same as, those of British English. Visit Barbados

A regional variant of English, referred to locally as Bajan, is spoken by most Barbadians in everyday life, especially in informal settings. In its full-fledged form, Bajan sounds markedly different from the Standard English heard on the island. The degree of intelligibility between Bajan and general English, for the general English speaker, depends on the level of creolised vocabulary and idioms. A Bajan speaker may be completely unintelligible to an English speaker from another country. Bajan is influenced by other Caribbean English dialects. Visit Barbados

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia