The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the archipelago's population. The archipelagic state consists of more than 3,000 islands, cays, and islets in the Atlantic Ocean, and is located north of Cuba and northwest of the island of Hispaniola and the Turks and Caicos Islands, southeast of the U.S. state of Florida, and east of the Florida Keys. The capital is Nassau on the island of New Providence. The Royal Bahamas Defence Force describes The Bahamas' territory as encompassing 470,000 km2 (180,000 sq mi) of ocean space.
Nassau is the capital and largest city of The Bahamas. It is located on the island of New Providence, which had a population of 246,329 in 2010, or just over 70% of the entire population of The Bahamas. As of April 2023, the preliminary results of the 2022 census of the Bahamas reported a population of 296,522 for New Providence, 74.26% of the country's population. Nassau is commonly defined as a primate city, dwarfing all other towns in the country. It is the centre of commerce, education, law, administration, and media of the country.
The earliest arrival of people in the islands now known as The Bahamas was in the first millennium AD. The first inhabitants of the islands were the Lucayans, an Arawakan language-speaking Taino people, who arrived between about 500 and 800 AD from other islands of the Caribbean.
This article talks about transportation in the Bahamas, a North American archipelagic state in the Atlantic Ocean.
Sir Lynden Oscar Pindling, KCMG, PC, NH, JP was a Bahamian politician who is regarded by some as the "Father of the Nation", having led the Bahamas to majority rule and independence.
New Providence is the most populous island in the Bahamas, containing more than 70% of the total population. It is the location of the national capital city of Nassau, whose boundaries are coincident with the island; it had a population of 246,329 at the 2010 Census; the latest estimate (2016) is 274,400.
Grand Bahama is the northernmost of the islands of the Bahamas, with the town of West End located 56 nautical miles east of Palm Beach, Florida. It is the third largest island in the Bahamas island chain of approximately 700 islands and 2,400 cays. The island is roughly 530 square miles (1,400 km2) in area and approximately 153 kilometres (95 mi) long west to east and 24 kilometres (15 mi) at its widest point north to south. Administratively, the island consists of the Freeport Bonded Area and the districts of East Grand Bahama and West Grand Bahama. Nearly half of the homes on the island were damaged or destroyed in early September 2019 by Hurricane Dorian.
Freeport is a city, district and free trade zone on the island of Grand Bahama of the northwest Bahamas. In 1955, Wallace Groves, a Virginian financier with lumber interests in Grand Bahama, was granted 20,000 hectares of pineyard with substantial areas of swamp and scrubland by the Bahamian government with a mandate to economically develop the area. Freeport has grown to become the second most populous city in the Bahamas.
ZNS is a national television broadcaster operated by the state-owned Broadcasting Corporation of The Bahamas (BCB). ZNS-TV's two transmitters, serving Nassau and Freeport, are the only over-the-air TV stations in the country. The rest of the country receives these channels via Cable Bahamas, a privately held company that maintained an exclusive licence to operate cable TV services until 2009.
The Royal Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF) is the military of The Bahamas. Since The Bahamas does not have an army or an air force, its navy composes the entirety of its armed forces. Under The Defence Act, the Royal Bahamas Defence Force has been mandated to defend The Bahamas, protect its territorial integrity, patrol its waters, provide assistance in times of disaster, maintain order in conjunction with the law enforcement agencies of The Bahamas, and carry out any such duties as determined by the National Security Council. The Defence Force is also a member of CARICOM's Regional Security Task Force. The task force has seen action in the United Nations mandate in Haiti 1994.
The Royal Bahamas Police Force is the national law enforcement agency of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas. It operates within the portfolio of the Ministry of National Security. The police force was established on 1 March 1840 and is headquartered on East Street Hill in Nassau, Bahamas.
The effects of Hurricane Wilma in The Bahamas were generally unexpected and primarily concentrated on the western portion of Grand Bahama. Hurricane Wilma developed on October 15, 2005 in the Caribbean, and after initially organizing slowly it explosively deepened to reach peak winds of 185 mph (298 km/h) and a record-low pressure of 882 mbar (hPa). It weakened and struck eastern Mexico as a Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson scale, and accelerated northeastward to make landfall on southwestern Florida on October 24. After crossing the state, Wilma briefly restrengthened in the open Atlantic Ocean, moving north of The Bahamas before weakening and later becoming an extratropical cyclone.
Myles Munroe, was a Bahamian evangelist and ordained minister, avid professor of the Kingdom of God, author, speaker and leadership consultant. He founded and led the Bahamas Faith Ministries International (BFMI), and Myles Munroe International (MMI). He was also the chief executive officer and chairman of the board of the International Third World Leaders Association, and president of the International Leadership Training Institute. Dr Munroe was the author of numerous books as well.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to The Bahamas:
The following is an alphabetical list of topics related to the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.
The 13th Central American and Caribbean Age Group Championships in Athletics was hosted by the Bahamas Association of Athletic Associations (BAAA) on June 18–19, 2009. It was originally to be held in Freeport, Grand Bahama. However, it had to be relocated to Nassau, New Providence, because the reconstruction of the stadium in Freeport could not be completed in time. This is already the third time, that the event is hosted by the Bahamas, after 1987 in Nassau, New Providence and 2001 in Freeport, Grand Bahama.
Wallace Groves was a prominent financier, who, after his release from federal prison in 1944, moved to the Bahamas and there founded and operated the free trade zone, resort, and casino development Freeport on Grand Bahama Island. Investigators of U.S. organized crime associate him with the Meyer Lansky syndicate operating offshore casinos from Miami Beach. These ties notwithstanding, he is credited with being a driving force in the development of the modern Bahamian economy.
Lawrence Whitfield Major was a senior naval officer in the Bahamas. Whitfield joined the Bahamas' police force in 1950. In 1971, when the Police force created a Police Marine Division, Major was put in charge. During his career Major held other senior positions within The Bahamas' Ministry of Security. When Major retired from the Police he was an assistant commissioner. He was then appointed Superintendent of the Bahamas' main prison, then known as the Fox Hill Prison and now called the Bahamas Department of Corrections.
The Nassau Guardian is a newspaper in The Bahamas, based in Nassau. Its first issue was published November 23, 1844. It is the largest newspaper in the Bahamas. The paper is one of the oldest continually published newspapers in the world and is considered a newspaper of record for The Bahamas.
Allerdyce Cooper Strachan is a Bahamian law enforcement officer. Strachan was a Superintendent of Police within the Royal Bahamas Police Force, the first woman to rise to that rank.
