Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It is 34 kilometres in length and up to 23 km (14 mi) in width, covering an area of 432 km2 (167 sq mi). It is in the western part of the North Atlantic, 100 km (62 mi) east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea. Barbados is east of the Windwards, part of the Lesser Antilles, at roughly 13°N of the equator. It is about 168 km (104 mi) east of both the countries of Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and 180 km (110 mi) south-east of Martinique and 400 km (250 mi) north-east of Trinidad and Tobago. Barbados is outside the principal Atlantic hurricane belt. Its capital and largest city is Bridgetown.
St. Elizabeths Hospital is a psychiatric hospital in Southeast, Washington, D.C. operated by the District of Columbia Department of Behavioral Health. It opened in 1855 with the name Government Hospital for the Insane, the first federally operated psychiatric hospital in the United States. Housing over 8,000 patients at its peak in the 1950s, the hospital had a fully functioning medical-surgical unit, a school of nursing, accredited internships and psychiatric residencies. Its campus was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990. The west portion of the campus is home to over 1,000 U.S. Department of Homeland Security personnel and serves as its headquarters. St. Elizabeths Hospital campus also has the joint tenant of the Douglas A. Munro Coast Guard Headquarters Building with hundreds of Coast Guard personnel.
Bridgetown is the capital and largest city of Barbados. Formerly The Town of Saint Michael, the Greater Bridgetown area is located within the parish of Saint Michael. Bridgetown is sometimes locally referred to as "The City", but the most common reference is simply "Town". As of 2014, its metropolitan population stands at roughly 110,000.
Barbados is a continental island in the North Atlantic Ocean and is located at 13°10' north of the equator, and 59°32' west of the Prime Meridian. As the easternmost isle of the Lesser Antilles in the West Indies, Barbados lies 160 kilometres (100 mi) east of the Windward Islands and Caribbean Sea. The maritime claim for Barbados is a territorial sea of 12 nmi, with an exclusive economic zone of 200 nmi which gives Barbados a total maritime area of 186,898 km2 (72,162 sq mi). Of the total EEZ area, 70,000 km2 is set aside for offshore oil exploration. A pending application to UNCLOS has placed for consideration a continental shelf 200 nmi to the east and south. To the west, most of Barbados' maritime boundaries consist of median lines with neighbours. These neighbours include: Martinique, and Saint Lucia to the northwest, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to the west, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela to the southwest, and Guyana to the southeast.
The politics of Barbados function within a framework of constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary government with strong democratic traditions; constitutional safeguards for nationals of Barbados include: freedom of speech, press, worship, movement, and association.
Since the island country's independence in 1966, the economy of Barbados has been transformed from a low-income economy dependent upon sugar production into an high-income economy based on tourism and the offshore sector. Barbados went into a deep recession in the 1990s after 3 years of steady decline brought on by fundamental macroeconomic imbalances. After a painful re-adjustment process, the economy began to grow again in 1993. Growth rates have averaged between 3%–5% since then. The country's three main economic drivers are: tourism, the international business sector, and foreign direct-investment. These are supported in part by Barbados operating as a service-driven economy and an international business centre.
Owen Seymour Arthur, PC was a Barbadian politician who served as the fifth prime minister of Barbados from 6 September 1994 to 15 January 2008. He was the longest-serving Barbadian prime minister at the time of his death. He also served as Leader of the Opposition from 1 August 1993 to 6 September 1994 and from 23 October 2010 to 21 February 2013.
The Barbados Labour Party (BLP), colloquially known as the "Bees", is a social democratic political party in Barbados established in 1938. Led by Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, it is the governing party of Barbados and holds an absolute majority in the House of Assembly of Barbados, holding 29 out of 30 seats. The BLP was elected to government on 25 May 2018 after a decade in opposition, with Mottley becoming the country's first female Prime Minister. The party originally won all of the seats in the House of Assembly, but Bishop Joseph Atherley, the MP for St. Michael West, became an independent MP and the Leader of the Opposition on 2 June 2018.
Sir Grantley Herbert Adams, CMG, QC, was a Barbadian and British West Indian statesman. Adams was a founder of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP), and he was named in 1998 as one of the National Heroes of Barbados.
The Queen Elizabeth Hospital (Q.E.H.) is located in Barbados' capital city Bridgetown, which is located in the parish of Saint Michael. The hospital is the main General Hospital for the southern part of the island.
Dr. Hugh Gordon Hylvestra Cummins was a Barbadian politician. He served as Premier of Barbados from 17 April 1958 to 8 December 1961 and was a member of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP).
The Port of Bridgetown, is a seaport in Bridgetown on the southwest coast of Barbados. Situated at the North-Western end of Carlisle Bay, the harbour handles all of the country's international bulk ship-based trade and commerce. In addition to international-shipping the Deep Water Harbour is the port of entry for southern-Caribbean cruise ships. The port is one of three designated ports of entry in Barbados, along with the privately owned Port Saint Charles marina and the Sir Grantley Adams International Airport. The port's time zone is GMT −4, and it handles roughly 700,000 cruise passengers and 900,000 tonnes of containerised cargo per year.
Keith Raymond Rufus Mondesir is a Saint Lucian politician. He has been a United Workers Party member of the House of Assembly of Saint Lucia and a member of the Saint Lucian cabinet since 2006, serving in the administrations of John Compton and Stephenson King.
David John Howard Thompson QC was the sixth prime minister of Barbados from 15 January 2008 until his death from pancreatic cancer on 23 October 2010.
Mia Amor MottleyEGH, OR, QC, MP is a Barbadian politician and attorney, and leader of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP). She has been the Prime Minister of Barbados since 2018. Mottley is the eighth person to hold the position of Prime Minister in Barbados and the first woman to hold either position. She will become Barbados' first prime minister under a republican system.
Barbados–Brazil relations are the foreign relations between Barbados and Brazil. Barbados and Brazil established diplomatic relations on 26 November 1971. Brazil has a resident Embassy in Hastings, Christ Church; while Barbados, which traditionally accredited its Ambassador in Caracas as its non-resident Ambassador to Brazil, opened an actual embassy in Brasília, Brazil on 27 April 2010. Relations between both nations have steadily increased between both nations, especially during 2010. Barbados and Brazil are members of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.
All Barbadian citizens are covered by universal health care at polyclinics and one general hospital. Barbados was placed 37th of 187 countries surveyed, in the Human Development Index. According to the 2019 World Bank Data, the life expectancy at birth in Barbados was 79 for men and 82 for women.
General elections were held in Barbados on 24 May 2018. The result was a landslide victory for the opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP), which won all 30 seats in the House of Assembly, resulting in BLP leader Mia Mottley becoming the country's first female Prime Minister. The BLP's victory was the first time a party had won every seat in the House of Assembly. Previously, the most one-sided result for a Barbadian election had been in 1999, when the BLP won 24 of the 28 seats. The BLP's 73.5 percent vote share was also the highest on record.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Barbados is part of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The outbreak was identified in Wuhan, Hubei, China, in December 2019, declared to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January 2020, and recognized as a pandemic by the World Health Organization on 11 March 2020. COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The case fatality rate for COVID-19 has been much lower than for other coronavirus respiratory infections such as SARS and MERS, but the transmission has been significantly greater, with a significant total death toll.
Joseph Junior Sylvester Atherley is a Barbadian religious minister and politician who has served as Leader of the Opposition in the House of Assembly of Barbados since 1 June 2018, and as leader of the People's Party for Democracy and Development since 8 June 2019.
