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Bahamas Travel Information and Hotel Discounts Bahamas Travel Information and Hotel Discounts

 

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Bahama Beach Club Resort
Bahama Beach Club Resort
Bahamas Travel Information and Hotel Discounts

 
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British Colonial Hilton - Nassau

The British Colonial Hilton Of Nassau
The Bahamas Is A Deluxe-class Hotel That Is Eleven Miles From Nassau International Airport And Is In The Heart Of Nassau's Financial District.
This Bright Yellow Hotel
Has Been A Famous Fixture On
The Island And Is Situated At
The Site Of Old Fort Nassau.

British Colonial Hilton - Nassau

 3D Animated Flags--By 3DFlags.com

   Bahamas         More Caribbean Islands Travel Guide - Hotels - Rental Cars and Resort vacations
                       Find a premier Hotel & Resort at  Hilton Hotels.   or book  Sheraton Hotels and Resorts

    Abaco               Freeport Grand Bahama Nassau                     Paradise Island
  Bahamas         

The Commonwealth of The Bahamas is an independent English-speaking nation in the West Indies. An archipelago of 700 islands and cays (which are small islands), the Bahamas is located in the Atlantic Ocean, east of Florida in the United States, north of Cuba and the Caribbean, and west of the British dependency of the Turks and Caicos Islands.

History
Main articles: History of the Bahamas,
Christopher Columbus's first landfall in the New World in 1492 is believed to have been on the island of San Salvador (also called Watling's Island), in the southeastern Bahamas. He encountered Taino (also known as Lucayan) Amerindians and exchanged gifts with them.

Taino Indians from both northwestern Hispaniola and northeastern Cuba moved into the southern Bahamas about the 7th century AD and became the Lucayans. They appear to have settled the entire archipelago by the 12th century AD. There may have been as many as 40,000 Lucayans living in the Bahamas when Columbus arrived.

The Bahamian Lucayans were deported to Hispaniola as slaves, and within two decades Taino societies ceased to exist as a separate population due to forced labour, warfare, disease, emigration and outmarriage.

Some say the name 'Bahamas' derives from the Spanish for shallow sea - baja mar. Others trace it to the Lucayan word for Grand Bahama Island - ba-ha-ma, or 'large upper middle land'.

After the Lucayans were destroyed, the Bahamian islands were deserted until the arrival of English settlers from Bermuda in 1650. Known as the Eleutherian Adventurers, these people established settlements on the island now called Eleuthera (from the Greek word for freedom).

The Bahamas became a British crown colony in 1718 but remained sparsely settled until the newly independent United States expelled thousands of American tories and their slaves. Many of these British Loyalists were given compensatory land grants in Canada and the Bahamas. Some 8,000 loyalists and their slaves moved to the Bahamas in the late 1700s from New York, Florida and the Carolinas.

The British granted the islands internal self-government in 1964 and, in 1973, Bahamians achieved full independence while remaining a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations. Since the 1950s, the Bahamian economy has been based on the twin pillars of tourism and financial services. Today, the country enjoys the third highest per capita income in the western hemisphere.

Geography
Main articles: Geography of the Bahamas,
The Bahamas is an archipelago of some 700 islands and cays covering over 100,000 square miles of the Atlantic ocean between Florida and Hispaniola. The archipelago has a total land area of 5,382 square miles - about 20 per cent larger than Bahamas - and a population of some 310,000 concentrated on the islands of New Providence and Grand Bahama.

The largest island is Andros Island. The Biminis are just 50 miles east of Florida. The island of Grand Bahama is home to the second largest city in the country, Freeport. The island of Abaco is to its east. The most southeastern island is Inagua. Other notable islands include Eleuthera, Cat Island, San Salvador, Acklins, Crooked Island, Exuma and Mayaguana. Nassau is the capital and largest city, located on New Providence. The islands have a subtropical climate, moderated by the Gulf Stream.

  Bahamas

Graced with beautiful beaches of pink sand, evocative windswept panoramas and countless opportunities for diving, snorkelling and fishing, the islands of the Bahamas are well established as one of the world's top draws for both intrepid explorers and casual vacationers. An island chain beginning a mere 55 miles east of Miami, Florida, the Bahamas offer an array of tourist hotels, all-inclusive resorts, and even rustic lodges, making staying there a relatively simple endeavour. Indeed, more than three million travellers each year choose the islands as their prime destination for outdoor sports, sun worship, casino gambling and, on some of the slightly more remote spots, eco-tourism.

In total, the Bahamas include around seven hundred islands, no more than thirty of which are inhabited, as well as smaller cays (pronounced "keys") and rocks - an impressive arc stretching from just beyond the Atlantic coast of Florida to the outlying waters of Cuba, where Great Inagua lies only sixty miles offshore. Although deeper oceanic troughs surround some of the islands, most are encircled by shallow, crystalline water that reflects a light turquoise hue during the day and glows with purple luminescence at night. This combination of shallow and deep water makes diving and snorkelling both challenging and intriguing, with numerous reefs waiting to be explored just beyond the shores of the gorgeous, uncrowded beaches.

Background:
Arawak Indians inhabited the islands when Christopher Columbus first set foot in the New World on San Salvador in 1492. British settlement of the islands began in 1647; the islands became a colony in 1783. Since attaining independence from the UK in 1973, The Bahamas have prospered through tourism and international banking and investment management. Because of its geography, the country is a major transshipment point for illegal drugs, particularly shipments to the US, and its territory is used for smuggling illegal migrants into the US.
Location:
Caribbean, chain of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean, southeast of Florida, northeast of Cuba
Climate:
tropical marine; moderated by warm waters of Gulf Stream
Terrain:
long, flat coral formations with some low rounded hills
Elevation extremes:
lowest point: Atlantic Ocean 0 m
highest point: Mount Alvernia, on Cat Island 63 m
Nationality:
noun: Bahamian(s)
adjective: Bahamian
Ethnic groups:
black 85%, white 12%, Asian and Hispanic 3%
Religions:
Baptist 32%, Anglican 20%, Roman Catholic 19%, Methodist 6%, Church of God 6%, other Protestant 12%, none or unknown 3%, other 2%
Languages:
English (official), Creole (among Haitian immigrants)
Currency:
Bahamian dollar (BSD)
Currency code:
BSD
Exchange rates:
Bahamian dollars per US dollar - 1 (2003), 1 (2002), 1 (2001), 1 (2000), 1 (1999)
 

     

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