Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago Latest News

External Affairs recently held comprehensive talks with the Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister to explore new ideas and initiatives for expanding bilateral cooperation between India and the dual-island nation. 

About Trinidad and Tobago

• It is an island country of the southeastern West Indies. 
• It is the 5th largest island country in the West Indies and the most industrialised and prosperous nation in the Caribbean.
• Forming the two southernmost links in the Caribbean chain, it lies close to the continent of South America, northeast of Venezuela and northwest of Guyana. 
• It consists of two main islands—Trinidad and Tobago—and several smaller islands. 
• Trinidad – the larger of the two islands, is crisscrossed by mountain ranges; the most dominant of these is the Northern Range, which is a continuation of the Andes Mountains. 
  • It comprises beautiful waterfalls such as the famous 91-metre-high Blue Basin and Maracas Falls. 
• The country is home to the Pitch Lake, one of the world’s largest natural asphalt deposits. 
• It achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1962 and obtained membership in the Commonwealth and the United Nations that same year. 
• It became a republic in 1976. 
• The capital is Port of Spain, located on the northwestern coast of Trinidad. 
• The ethnic makeup of Trinidad is dominated by two groups, roughly equal in size: 
  • descendants of enslaved people, whose ancestors were brought in to work on cotton and sugar plantations beginning in the late 18th century, and 
  • Indo-Trinidadians, or East Indians, whose ancestors were primarily labourers who immigrated from the Indian subcontinent as plantation workers after the abolition of slavery in the mid-19th century. 
• Language: 
  • Although English is the official language, most people speak Trinidad English, a creole language. 
  • A few people, mostly in rural areas, speak a French-derived creole, Spanish, or Caribbean Hindustani (a dialect of Hindi).

Source: DP

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