Jamaica

Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean, covering 10,991 square kilometres (4,244 sq mi). It is the third-largest island in the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean, after Cuba and Hispaniola. Jamaica lies about 145 km (78 nmi) south of Cuba, 191 km (103 nmi) west of Hispaniola, and 215 km (116 nmi) southeast of the Cayman Islands. With 2.8 million people, Jamaica is the third-most populous Anglophone country in the Americas and the fourth-most populous country in the Caribbean. Kingston is the capital and largest city. The indigenous Ciboney people gradually came under Spanish rule after the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1494. Many of the indigenous people either were killed or died of diseases, after which the Spanish brought large numbers of Africans to Jamaica as slaves. The island belonged to Spain under the name Santiago until 1655, when England conquered it and named it Jamaica. It became an important part of the colonial British West Indies. Under Britain's colonial rule, Jamaica became a leading sugar exporter, with a plantation economy dependent on continued importation of African slaves and their descendants. The British emancipated all slaves in 1838, and many freedmen chose to have subsistence farms rather than to work on plantations. Beginning in the 1840s, the British began using Chinese and Indian indentured labourers for plantation work. Jamaica achieved independence from the United Kingdom on 6 August 1962. Jamaica is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy, with power vested in the bicameral Parliament of Jamaica, consisting of an appointed Senate and a directly elected House of Representatives. Andrew Holness has served as Prime Minister of Jamaica since March 2016. Jamaica is a Commonwealth realm, with Charles III as its king; the appointed representative of the Crown is the Governor-General of Jamaica, the office having been held by Patrick Allen since 2009. Because of a high rate of emigration for work since the 1960s, there is a large Jamaican diaspora, particularly in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Most Jamaicans are of Sub-Saharan African ancestry, with significant European, East Asian (primarily Chinese), Indian, Lebanese, and mixed-race minorities. Jamaica is an upper-middle-income country with an economy heavily dependent on tourism, including popular resorts. It has an average of 4.3 million tourists per year. Jamaica has a global influence that belies its small size; it is the birthplace of the Rastafari religion and reggae music, along with the associated musical genres of dub, ska, and dancehall; and it is internationally prominent in sports, including cricket, sprinting, and athletics. Jamaica has sometimes been considered the world's least populous cultural superpower.

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0