Cayman Islands
The Cayman Islands is a self-governing British Overseas Territory in the western Caribbean. It is the largest by population of all the British Overseas Territories. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, which are located south of Cuba and north-east of Honduras, between Jamaica and Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. The capital city is George Town on Grand Cayman, which is the most populous of the three islands.
The Cayman Islands is considered to be part of the geographic Western Caribbean zone as well as the Greater Antilles. The territory is a major offshore financial centre for international businesses and wealthy individuals mainly due to the state charging no tax on income earned or stored.
With a GDP per capita of $97,750 in 2023, the Cayman Islands has the highest standard of living in the Caribbean, and one of the highest in the world. Immigrants from over 140 countries and territories reside in the Cayman Islands.
History
Origins and colonization
, no evidence has been found that the islands had been occupied before their discovery by Europeans. The Cayman Islands got their name from the word for crocodile in the language of the Arawak-Taíno people. It is believed that the first European to sight the islands was Christopher Columbus, on 10 May 1503, during his final voyage to the Americas. He named them "Las Tortugas", after the large number of turtles found there. However, in succeeding decades, the islands began to be referred to as "Caimanas" or "Caymanes".No immediate colonisation followed Columbus's sighting, but a variety of settlers from various backgrounds eventually arrived, including pirates, shipwrecked sailors, and deserters from Oliver Cromwell's army in Jamaica. Sir Francis Drake briefly visited the islands in 1586.
The first recorded permanent inhabitant, Isaac Bodden, was born on Grand Cayman around 1661. He was the grandson of an original settler named Bodden, probably one of Oliver Cromwell's soldiers involved in the capture of Jamaica from Spain in 1655.
England took formal control of the Cayman Islands, along with Jamaica, as a result of the Treaty of Madrid of 1670. That same year saw an attack on a turtle fishing settlement on Little Cayman by the Spanish under Portuguese privateer Manuel Ribeiro Pardal. Following several unsuccessful attempts at settlement in what had by then become a haven for pirates, a permanent English-speaking population in the islands dates from the 1730s. With settlement, after the first royal land grant by the governor of Jamaica in 1734, came the introduction of slaves. Many were purchased and brought to the islands from Africa. That has resulted in the majority of native Caymanians being of African or British descent.
On 8 February 1794, the Caymanians rescued the crews of a group of ten merchant ships, including HMS Convert, an incident that has since become known as the Wreck of the Ten Sail. The ships had struck a reef and run aground during rough seas. Legend has it that King George III rewarded the islanders for their generosity with a promise never to introduce taxes, because one of the ships carried a member of the King's family. Despite the legend, the story is not true.
19th century
The first census taken in the islands, in 1802, showed the population on Grand Cayman to be 933, with 545 of those inhabitants being slaves. Slavery was abolished in the Cayman Islands in 1833, following the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act by the British Parliament. At the time of abolition, there were over 950 slaves of African ancestry, owned by 116 families.On 22 June 1863, the Cayman Islands was officially declared and administered as a dependency of the Crown Colony of Jamaica. The islands continued to be governed as part of the Colony of Jamaica until 1962, when they became a separate Crown colony, after Jamaica became an independent Commonwealth realm.
20th century
In the 1950s, tourism began to flourish, following the opening of Owen Roberts International Airport, along with a bank and several hotels, as well as the introduction of a number of scheduled flights and cruise stop-overs. Politically, the Cayman Islands were an internally self-governing territory of Jamaica from 1958 to 1962, but they reverted to direct British rule following the independence of Jamaica in 1962. In 1972, a large degree of internal autonomy was granted by a new constitution, with further revisions being made in 1994. The Cayman Islands government focused on boosting the territory's economy via tourism and the attraction of off-shore finance, both of which mushroomed from the 1970s onwards. Historically, the Cayman Islands has been a tax-exempt destination, and the government has always relied on indirect and not direct taxes. The territory has never levied income tax, capital gains tax, or any wealth tax, making it a popular tax haven.In April 1986, the first marine protected areas were designated in the Cayman Islands, making them the first islands in the Caribbean to protect their fragile marine life.
21st century
The constitution was further modified in 2001 and 2009, codifying various aspects of human rights legislation.On 11 September 2004, the island of Grand Cayman, which lies largely unprotected at sea level, was battered by Hurricane Ivan, the worst hurricane to hit the islands in 86 years. It created an storm surge which flooded many areas of Grand Cayman. An estimated 83% of the dwellings on the island were damaged, with 4% requiring complete reconstruction. A reported 70% of all dwellings suffered severe damage from flooding or wind. Another 26% sustained minor damage from partial roof removal, low levels of flooding, or impact with floating or wind-driven hurricane debris. Power, water, and communications were disrupted for months in some areas. Within two years, a major rebuilding program on Grand Cayman meant that its infrastructure was almost back to its pre-hurricane condition. Due to the tropical location of the islands, more hurricanes or tropical systems have affected the Cayman Islands than any other region in the Atlantic basin. On average, it has been brushed, or directly hit, every 2.23 years.
Geography
The islands are in the western Caribbean Sea and are the peaks of an undersea mountain range called the Cayman Ridge. This ridge flanks the Cayman Trough, deep which lies to the south. The islands lie in the northwest of the Caribbean Sea, east of Quintana Roo, Mexico and Yucatán State, Mexico, northeast of Costa Rica, north of Panama, south of Cuba and west of Jamaica. They are situated about south of Miami, east of Mexico, south of Cuba, and about northwest of Jamaica. Grand Cayman is by far the largest, with an area of. Grand Cayman's two "sister islands", Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, are about east north-east of Grand Cayman and have areas of respectively. The nearest land mass from Grand Cayman is the Canarreos Archipelago, whereas the nearest from the easternmost island Cayman Brac is the Jardines de la Reina archipelago – both of which are part of Cuba.All three islands were formed by large coral heads covering submerged ice-age peaks of western extensions of the Cuban Sierra Maestra range and are mostly flat. One notable exception to this is The Bluff on Cayman Brac's eastern part, which rises to above sea level, the highest point on the islands.
The terrain is mostly a low-lying limestone base surrounded by coral reefs. The portions of prehistoric coral reef that line the coastline and protrude from the water are referred to as ironshore.
Flora
In Cayman Islands forest cover is around 53% of the total land area, equivalent to 12,720 hectares of forest in 2020, down from 13,130 hectares in 1990. In 2020, naturally regenerating forest covered 12,720 hectares and planted forest covered 0 hectares. Of the naturally regenerating forest 0% was reported to be primary forest. For the year 2015, 0% of the forest area was reported to be under public ownership, 12% private ownership and 88% with ownership listed as other or unknown.Fauna
The mammalian species in the Cayman Islands include the introduced Central American agouti and eight species of bats. At least three now extinct native rodent species were present until the discovery of the islands by Europeans. Marine life around the island of the Grand Cayman includes tarpon, silversides, French angelfish, and giant barrel sponges. A number of cetaceans are found in offshore waters. These species include the goose-beaked whale, Blainville's beaked whale and sperm whale.Cayman avian fauna includes two endemic subspecies of Amazona parrots: Amazona leucocephala hesterna or Cuban amazon, presently restricted to the island of Cayman Brac, but formerly also on Little Cayman, and Amazona leucocephala caymanensis or Grand Cayman parrot, which is native to the Cayman Islands, forested areas of Cuba, and the Isla de la Juventud. Little Cayman and Cayman Brac are also home to red-footed and brown boobies. Although the American barn owl occurs in all three of the islands they are not commonplace. The Cayman Islands also possess five endemic subspecies of butterflies. These butterfly breeds can be viewed at the Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park on the Grand Cayman.
Among other notable fauna at the Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park is the critically threatened blue iguana, which is also known as the Grand Cayman iguana. The blue iguana is endemic to the Grand Cayman particularly because of rocky, sunlit, open areas near the island's shores that are advantageous for the laying of eggs. Nevertheless, habitat destruction and invasive mammalian predators remain the primary reasons that blue iguana hatchlings do not survive naturally.
The Cuban crocodile once inhabited the islands. And the American crocodile is also believed to be slowly repopulating the islands from Cuba. The name "Cayman" is derived from a Carib word for the various crocodilians that inhabited the islands.