60 Fun Facts About Bahamas

Nassau, the capital and largest city of the Bahamas, sits on which island?

The island is small compared with giants like Andros, but its sheltered harbour made it the colony's centre from the 1600s onward.

Roughly how many islands make up the Bahamas?

On top of the islands there are some 2,400 cays, and only about 30 of the islands are inhabited.

Roughly how many of the Bahamas' islands are actually inhabited?

The whole archipelago is spread across some 500 miles of ocean but has a total land area of just 3,860 square miles, smaller than Connecticut.

In which year did the Bahamas become an independent nation?

It stayed a Commonwealth realm, so the British monarch remains head of state, represented locally by a governor-general.

On what date does the Bahamas celebrate Independence Day?

The independence Order in Council was actually dated June 20, but the handover took effect on the July date, which is now the national holiday.

What did the Lucayans call the island Columbus named San Salvador in 1492?

Which modern island that actually was is still argued over; Watlings Island was officially renamed San Salvador in 1925 on the strength of the traditional identification.

The Bahamas is one of only two countries whose official short name begins with 'The'. What is the other?

The Netherlands, Philippines and Maldives all take an article in everyday English, but only two countries have it built into their official short form.

Tourist guides often trace the name 'Bahamas' to Spanish words meaning what?

The claim is repeated everywhere but is disputed by scholars, some of whom prefer a Lucayan origin for the name.

The Eleutheran Adventurers, the Bahamas' first permanent English settlers, arrived from where?

They were Puritans seeking religious freedom, led by William Sayle, and freed slaves from Bermuda were among the first Africans to arrive with them.

The Puritan settlers named their new island Eleuthera, which comes from the Greek word for what?

The name still fits its founders' motives: they had left Bermuda specifically to escape religious control.

Which former privateer arrived at Nassau in 1718 as governor and ended the pirates' republic?

His first term ruined him financially and he was jailed for debt on returning to England, yet he was sent back for a second term in 1728 and died in office.

Which marooned Scottish sailor, the model for Robinson Crusoe, was rescued in 1709?

The rescue happened on Juan Fernández Island during a privateering voyage that ended up circumnavigating the globe and doubling its investors' money.

Which pirate took the 1718 pardon at Nassau and was then commissioned to hunt his former comrades?

He took ten pirates prisoner, and nine of them were hanged in Nassau on 12 December 1718, though Charles Vane and Blackbeard both slipped away.

Nassau was renamed in 1695 to honour King William III. What had the settlement been called before that?

The original town, named for Charles II, had been burned to the ground by the Spanish in 1684; Governor Nicholas Trott rebuilt it and picked a name from William's House of Nassau.

What was the official motto of the colonial Bahamas until independence?

The Latin original, 'Expulsis piratis restituta commercia', dates from Woodes Rogers's clean-up of Nassau; the current motto is 'Forward, Upward, Onward, Together'.

Who were the 7,300 people Britain resettled in the Bahamas after the American Revolution?

About 2,000 came from New York alone, and the newcomers set up cotton plantations and quickly became a political force in Nassau.

During the American Civil War the Bahamas briefly boomed. What was the source of the money?

Nassau was a natural depot: fast ships slipped cotton out of Southern ports and ran guns and luxuries back in past the Union blockade.

Which former British king was appointed Governor of the Bahamas in August 1940?

As the Duke of Windsor he disliked the job and called the islands 'a third-class British colony', though he was praised locally for anti-poverty efforts.

Who served as the first prime minister of an independent Bahamas, holding office from 1973 to 1992?

He is often called the 'Father of the Nation' for leading the country to majority rule and independence, and Nassau's international airport now carries his name.

Who was appointed the first governor-general of the Bahamas shortly after independence?

The governor-general is the monarch's representative; Butler had been a leading figure in the fight against the white merchant establishment for decades.

What was the nickname of the white merchant elite behind the United Bahamian Party?

They were finally unseated in 1967 when the Progressive Liberal Party won and installed the colony's first Black premier.

The Bahamian currency is held at a fixed one-to-one exchange rate with which foreign currency?

Because of the peg, shops happily accept either currency, and change often comes back as a mix of the two.

Which of these taxes does the Bahamian government NOT levy?

The treasury lives on tariffs, VAT, licence fees and property and stamp duties instead, which is a big part of why the country became an offshore finance hub.

What colour is the triangle at the hoist of the Bahamian flag?

The gold stands for the sun and the land's resources, the aquamarine for the surrounding sea; the flag replaced a defaced British Blue Ensign at independence.

Which two animals support the shield on the Bahamian coat of arms?

The marlin sits on the sea side and the flamingo on the land side, a nod to the country's geography, and both are the national animals.

Which ship is depicted on the shield of the Bahamian coat of arms?

The blazon places Columbus's flagship on wavy blue-and-silver waves beneath a rising golden sun.

What is the national flower of the Bahamas?

It was chosen partly because no other country had claimed it, though the US Virgin Islands has since adopted it too; it blooms all year round.

Which extremely dense hardwood, once prized for ship bearings, is the national tree of the Bahamas?

The wood is so dense it sinks in water; the same tree's flower is Jamaica's national flower.

What is the highest point in the Bahamas, rising only 64 metres on Cat Island?

It is topped by a small stone hermitage built by hand by the architect-monk Father Jerome, and most Bahamian ridges rise no more than 45 metres.

Which Bahamian island has more land area than all the country's other islands combined?

It is really an archipelago of three main islands and hundreds of cays, and it also holds the world's largest collection of blue holes and the sixth-longest barrier reef.

What is the deep-water channel west of Nassau used by the US and UK for submarine research called?

The channel plunges to well over a mile deep right beside banks that are barely knee-deep, which is exactly why navies like testing there.

Uninhabited Big Major Cay is famous for a beach populated by a colony of feral, swimming what?

Nobody is sure how they got there; sailors, shipwrecks and a planned barbecue have all been blamed, and the pigs now paddle out to greet tour boats for food.

Dean's Blue Hole, the world's third-deepest at 202 metres, lies off which of the Bahamas' islands?

It sits in a sheltered bay west of Clarence Town and has hosted freediving world championships because divers can drop straight down from a sandy beach.

The final scene of The Silence of the Lambs was filmed on which Bahamian island, the closest to the US?

The same island was Ernest Hemingway's big-game fishing base in the 1930s and was linked by Ponce de León's chroniclers to the Fountain of Youth.

Freeport, the second-largest city in the Bahamas, is a free-trade zone on which island?

It exists because of the 1955 Hawksbill Creek Agreement, under which financier Wallace Groves got 50,000 acres of pine and swamp and a promise of no taxes, now extended to 2054.

What were Hurricane Dorian's peak sustained winds over the Bahamas in 2019?

That ties it with the 1935 Labor Day hurricane for the strongest Atlantic landfall on record, and it remains the costliest disaster in Bahamian history at about $3.4 billion.

Which South African hotelier reopened the Paradise Island resort as Atlantis in 1998?

The property had earlier passed through the hands of Resorts International, in which Donald Trump held a majority stake before selling to Merv Griffin.

Nassau's $4 billion Baha Mar resort, opened in 2017, was financed mainly by a bank from which country?

China Construction America built it with roughly 70 percent Chinese labour, and after years of delays it opened with only one hotel, the Grand Hyatt.

On which Bahamian island was the disastrous 2017 Fyre Festival supposed to take place?

Guests promised luxury villas found disaster-relief tents and cheese sandwiches; McFarland was later sentenced to six years for wire fraud.

Which 1965 James Bond film sends 007 to Nassau to track down SPECTRE's Emilio Largo?

Its underwater battle scenes were shot in Bahamian waters, and the film also features Bahamian actor Earl Cameron as Bond's local contact Pinder.

For which film did Sidney Poitier become the first Black Best Actor Oscar winner in 1964?

He was also the first Bahamian to win it, and from 1997 to 2007 he served as the Bahamas' ambassador to Japan.

In which US city was Sidney Poitier born to visiting Bahamian parents?

He was the youngest of seven children and arrived two months premature; the family soon returned to their farm on Cat Island.

Junkanoo, the Bahamas' costumed street parade, is traditionally held on New Year's Day and which other date?

The 'rush' through Nassau moves to the beat of goatskin drums and cowbells; a third parade is now held on Independence Day.

Junkanoo is widely assumed to have started in the Bahamas, but the evidence points to which island?

The festival grew up during slavery in the British colonies, and versions of it are still held as far away as Miami and Key West.

Which Bahamian sprinter won the women's 400 metres at both the 2016 Rio and 2020 Tokyo Olympics?

Her Rio win came with a desperate dive across the line to beat Allyson Felix; her sister was crowned Miss Universe Bahamas in 2020.

Which Bahamian won the 400 metres at the 2019 Worlds and then Olympic gold at Tokyo 2020?

His 43.48-second national record in Doha beat American favourite Fred Kerley and put him among the ten fastest men ever over the distance.

Durward Knowles won Olympic gold for the Bahamas at Tokyo 1964. In which sport?

He took the Star class with Cecil Cooke, having sailed for Britain in 1948; in 2016 he became the oldest living Olympic champion.

The Bahamas has won more Olympic medals than any other country whose population is below what figure?

The country first competed in 1952 and has missed only the boycotted 1980 Games since; most of its medals have come on the track.

The Bahamas Bowl, played in Nassau since 2014, is a postseason game in which sport?

It is an NCAA Division I bowl game; the 2023 edition had to move to Charlotte, North Carolina while the stadium was being renovated.

The Bahamas bans fishing for the Nassau grouper during which spawning months?

The fish gathers in huge spawning aggregations in winter, which made it easy to wipe out; the US and Cayman Islands have similar protections.

In Bahamian cooking, what is 'switcha'?

It is made with native limes and is the everyday soft drink to go with conch fritters; Kalik is the local beer for grown-ups.

What is Bahamian souse called when the chicken is swapped for the day's catch?

It is a classic breakfast dish, typically served with johnnycake or grits, and turns up at every big festival table alongside guava duff.

The Lucayans, the original inhabitants of the Bahamas, called themselves Lukku-Cairi. What did it mean?

They had moved up from Hispaniola and Cuba between AD 500 and 800; 'Lucayan' is simply the English version of the Spanish rendering of their own name.

Spanish slave raids had completely emptied the Bahamas of its Lucayan population by roughly which year?

When the Spanish went back in 1520 to ship the last of them to Hispaniola they could find only eleven people, and the islands stayed essentially deserted until 1648.

Which company has run Great Inagua's saltworks in the Bahamas since the 1950s?

Salt was being shipped from the island to Spanish colonies as early as the 1600s, and Henri Christophe, king of northern Haiti, built a summer retreat on its northeast point.

Which US brig was sailed to Nassau after an 1841 shipboard slave revolt?

British officials freed the enslaved people on arrival; the Comet, Encomium and Hermosa were earlier slave ships wrecked off Abaco.

Escaped African Seminoles from Florida founded which village on Andros Island in the 1820s?

Their descendants still keep Seminole traditions of basket making and grave marking.

Who unseated Lynden Pindling to become prime minister in 1992?

He won again in 1997 before losing to Perry Christie's PLP in 2002.

The Lucayan word meaning 'large upper middle island' originally referred to which single island?

Only later did the name spread from that one island to the whole archipelago.

Which regional bloc is the Bahamas a full member of, while staying out of its single market?

It joined the Commonwealth of Nations on the same day it became independent in 1973.