Category: barbados

Barbados is a island country in the Lesser Antilles, in the Caribbean region of North America. It is 34 kilometres -21 miles- in length and up to 23 km -14 mi- in width, covering an area of 432 km2 -167 sq mi.

It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 km -62 mi east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about 168 km -104 mi east of the islands of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and 400 km -250 mi north-east of Trinidad and Tobago. Barbados is outside of the principal Atlantic hurricane belt.

Its capital and largest city is Bridgetown, Barbados. Inhabited by Kalinago people since the 13th century, and prior to that by other Amerindians, Barbados was visited by Spanish navigators in the late 15th century and claimed for the Spanish Crown. It first appeared in a Spanish map in 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. As a wealthy sugar colony, it became an English center of the African slave trade until that trade was outlawed in 1807, with final emancipation of slaves in Barbados occurring over a period of years from 1833.

Barbados

Barbados

Barbados

Главой государства является королева Великобритании, представленная на острове генерал-губернатором. Законодательная власть принадлежит парламенту, состоящему из Палаты собрания -28 членов, избираемых населением на 5 лет и Сената -21 сенатор, назначаемый генерал-губернатором.

12 членов Сената назначаются по представлению премьер-министра, 2 – по представлению лидера оппозиционной партии в нижней палате парламента, 7 – по личному усмотрению генерал-губернатора.

Исполнительную власть осуществляет правительство во главе с премьер-министром, лидером партии парламентского большинства, которое утверждается генерал-губернатором. Политические партии: Барбадосская лейбористская партия – правящая с 1994 г.; Демократическая лейбористская партия; Национальная демократическая партия.