Country Profiles: Barbados

Barbados is located in the Caribbean Sea. Settled by the British in 1627, Barbados became an independent nation in 1966. With an area of 430 sq km, Barbados is 2.5 times the size of Washington, D.C.

Barbados is an island located off the northeastern coast of South America. It is relatively flat, but rises gently to the central highland region.





People who live in Barbados are known as Barbadian or Bajan. These are also the adjectives used to describe items from this country. As of July 2011, the population was 286,705. The official language is English. Protestants make up over 63% of the population, while Catholics make up a little over 4%.


The capital of Barbados is Bridgetown, and the country is made up of 11 parishes and 1 city. Barbados' constitution was adopted in 1966 and can be found here through the Organization of American States. The Prime Minister of Barbados is Freundel Stuart. Information about the leaders of Barbados can be found here. The currency of Barbados is the Barbadian dollar (abbreviated BBD), which currently stands at 2 BBD per USD.





All of this information was gathered from the CIA World Factbook. For more information, check out these resources...

Barbados Integrated Government

Barbados, CIA World Factbook

Background Note: Barbados, U.S. Department of State

Barbados 2010 Country Report on Human Rights Practices, U.S. Department of State.

You can also check out the Country Studies tab on our Fed Docs libguide here for more resources on all of the countries.

Sonnet Ireland
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