The Bahamas, understood officially as the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is a sovereign country within the Lucayan Island Chain of the West Indies in the Atlantic. It occupies 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago’s acreage as well as is residence to 88% of the archipelago’s populace. The archipelagic state consists of more than 3000 islands, cays, and also islets in the Atlantic Sea, and lies north of Cuba and northwest of the island of Hispaniola (split between Haiti and the Dominican Republic) and also the Turks and also Caicos Islands, southeast of the American state of Florida, and also eastern of the Florida Keys. The capital is Nassau on the island of New Divine superintendence. The Royal Bahamas Support Force defines The Bahamas’ region as including 470,000 km2 (180,000 sq mi) of sea space.

The Bahama Islands were populated by the Lucayans, a branch of the Arawakan-speaking Taíno, for many centuries. Christopher Columbus was the first European to see the islands, making his very first landfall in the “New World” in 1492. Later, the Spanish delivered the indigenous Lucayans to and also enslaved them on Hispaniola, after which the Bahama islands were mainly deserted from 1513 up until 1648, when English homesteaders from Bermuda decided on the island of Eleuthera.

The Bahamas became a British crown nest in 1718, when the British clamped down on piracy. After the American War Of Independence, the Crown transplanted hundreds of American Loyalists to the Bahamas; they took enslaved people with them as well as developed plantations on land gives. African enslaved people as well as their offspring made up most of the populace from this duration on. The slave trade was abolished by the British in 1807; slavery in the Bahamas was abolished in 1834. Consequently, the Bahamas ended up being a place completely free African slaves.

Africans freed from prohibited servant ships were transplanted on the islands by the Royal Navy, while some North American servants as well as Seminoles left to the Bahamas from Florida. Bahamians were even known to recognise the freedom of enslaved people lugged by the ships of other countries which reached the Bahamas. Today Afro-Bahamians compose 90% of the populace of 400,516.

The country acquired governmental freedom in 1973, led by Sir Lynden O. Pindling, with Elizabeth II as its queen. In regards to gdp per head, The Bahamas is just one of the richest countries in the Americas (complying with the USA as well as Canada), with an economic situation based upon tourist and offshore money.