Jamaica has a tropical climate with year round constant high temperatures and humidity and no seasonal variation. The city of Kingston lies on the dry part of the island, so rainfall is intermittent. When it does rain, showers are short, heavy and followed by sunshine. The rainiest weather occurs in May and June and later in October and November, sometimes extending into December. Tropical storms and hurricanes can occur between July and November.
The dollar (currency code JMD) has been the currency of Jamaica since 1969. It is normally abbreviated with the dollar sign, $, or, alternatively, J$ or JA$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies. It is divided into 100 cents.
Jamaica is the third largest island in the Caribbean, and the most populous English-speaking island in that region. The island of Jamaica is home to the Blue Mountains inland, and is surrounded by a narrow coastal plain. Most major towns and cities are located on the coast. Chief towns and cities include the capital Kingston, Portmore, Spanish Town, Mandeville, Ocho Ríos, Port Antonio, and Montego Bay.
The climate in Jamaica is tropical, with hot and humid weather, although higher inland regions have a more temperate climate. Some regions on the south coast, such as the Liguanea Plain and the Pedro Plains are relatively dry rain-shadow areas. Jamaica lies in the hurricane belt of the Atlantic Ocean; as a result, the island sometimes experiences significant storm damage. Hurricanes Charlie and Gilbert hit Jamaica directly in 1951 and 1988, respectively, causing major damage, destruction, and many deaths. In the 2000s, hurricanes Ivan and Dean also brought severe weather to the island.
The Arawak and possibly Taino people from South America are thought to have settled on the island between 4000 and 1000 BC. Although some claim they became virtually extinct following contact with Europeans, others claim that some survived for a while. The Jamaican National Heritage Trust is attempting to locate and document any evidence of the Arawaks.
Christopher Columbus claimed Jamaica for Spain after landing there in 1494. Columbus' probable landing point was Dry Harbour, now called Discovery Bay. St. Ann's Bay was the "Saint Gloria" of Columbus who first sighted Jamaica at this point. One mile west of St. Ann's Bay is the site of the first settlement on the island -Sevilla. Sevilla was abandoned in 1554 because of numerous pirate raids.
The capital was moved to Spanish Town, now located in the parish of St. Catherine, as early as 1534. It was then called St. Jago de la Vega or Santiago de la Vega. Spanish Town has the oldest Cathedral in the British colonies. The Spanish were forcibly evicted by the English at Ocho Rios in St. Ann. However, it was not until 1655 that at Tower Isle [the site for the last Spanish fort in Jamaica] that the English took over Jamaica. The Spaniard Don Arnoldo de Yassi kept Tower Hill [the site for Tower Isle] from the English for five years, before escaping to Cuba. The site of his departure was fittingly "Runaway Bay", also in St. Ann. The name of Montego Bay, the capital of the parish of St. James, was derived from the Spanish name manteca bahía (or Bay of Lard) for the large quantity of boar used for the lard-making industry.
The English Admiral William Penn (father of William Penn of Pennsylvania) and General Robert Venables seized the island in 1655. During its first 200 years of English/British rule, Jamaica became one of the world's leading sugar-exporting nations. It produced more than 77,000 tons of sugar annually between 1820 and 1824, achieved through the extensive use of imported enslaved African labourers. After the abolition of the slave trade, the British imported Indian and Chinese workers as indentured servants in the early 1800s to supplement the labour pool. Descendants of indentured servants of Indian and Asian origin continue to reside in Jamaica today.
By the beginning of the 19th century, Jamaica's heavy reliance on slavery resulted in blacks (Africans) outnumbering whites (Europeans) by a ratio of almost 20 to 1. Even though England had outlawed the importation of slaves, slaves were still smuggled into the colonies. The British government drew up laws regimenting the abolition of slavery, but the laws also included instructions for the improvement of the slaves' way of life. These instructions included a ban of the use of whips in the field and a ban on the flogging of women; notification that slaves were to be allowed religious instruction; a requirement that slaves be given an extra free day during the week when they could sell their produce as well as a ban of Sunday markets.
In Jamaica, however, these measures resisted by the House of Assembly. The Assembly also claimed that the slaves were content and objected to Parliament's interference in island affairs, although many slave owners feared possible revolts. Following a series of rebellions and changing attitudes in Great Britain, the nation formally abolished slavery in 1834, with full emancipation from chattel slavery declared in 1838.
In the 1800s, the British established a number of botanical gardens. These included the Castleton Garden in 1862, set up to replace the Bath Garden which was subject to flooding. Created in the 1779s, Bath Garden was the site for planting breadfruit brought to Jamaica from the Pacific by Captain William Bligh. Other gardens were the Cinchona Plantation in 1868 and the Hope Garden founded in 1874.
In 1872, Kingston became the island's capital.
In 1945, Sir Horace Hector Hearne became Chief Justice and Keeper of the Records in Jamaica. He headed the Supreme Court, Kingston between 1945 and 1950/1951. He then moved to Kenya where he was appointed Chief Justice.
Jamaica slowly gained increasing independence from the United Kingdom. In 1958, it became a province in the Federation of the West Indies, a federation among the British West Indies. Jamaica attained full independence by leaving the federation in 1962.
Strong economic growth averaging about six percent per annum marked its first ten years of independence under conservative governments led successively by Prime Ministers Alexander Bustamante, Donald Sangster and Hugh Shearer. The growth was fueled by strong investments in bauxite/alumina, tourism, manufacturing industry and to a lesser extent the agricultural sector. However, the initial optimism of the first decade was accompanied by a growing sense of inequality and a sense that the benefits of growth were not being experienced by the urban poor. This, combined with the effects of a slowdown in the global economy in 1970, prompted the electorate to change the government, electing the PNP (People's National Party) in 1972. However, despite efforts to create more socially equitable policies in education and health, Jamaica continued to lag economically, with its gross national product having fallen in 1980 to some twenty-five percent below the 1972 level. Rising foreign and local debt accompanied by large fiscal deficits resulted in the invitation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) financing from the USA and others, and the imposition of IMF austerity measures (with a greater than 25% interest rate per year).
Economic deterioration continued into the mid-1980s, exacerbated by the closure of Alpart and Alcoa, the first and third largest alumina producers, respectively. There was significant reduction in production by Alcan, the second largest. In addition, Reynolds Jamaica Mines, Ltd. left the Jamaican industry, and tourism decreased. During the 1980s, Jamaica was still a prosperous country, though increases in crime and petty theft began to weigh on the island.
1 Jan New Year's Day.
25 Feb Ash Wednesday.
10 Apr Good Friday.
13 Apr Easter Monday.
23 May Labour Day.
1 Aug Emancipation Day.
6 Aug Independence Day.
20 Oct National Heroes' Day.
25-26 Dec Christmas.
In 1986 Jamaica had an estimated population of 2,304,000 persons, making it the most populous of the English-speaking Caribbean islands. The most recent census, in June 1982, recorded a total population of 2,095,858 persons, an increase of 13.4 percent over the 1970 census count of 1,848,508. Between 1970 and 1982, Jamaica's average annual rate of population growth was 1.1 percent, a relatively low rate in comparison with other developing countries. In 1986 the rate of population growth had dropped farther, to 0.9 percent. Jamaica's low rate of population growth reflected gradually declining birth rates and high levels of emigration, the country's most striking demographic feature. Nevertheless, significant reductions in mortality rates, resulting from better health care and sanitation, also affected the overall population growth rate, tending to raise it.
Jamaica's annual rate of population growth has been relatively stable since roughly the end of World War I. Between 1881 and 1921, emigration and disease caused the rate of population growth to fall to very low levels. Some 156,000 Jamaicans emigrated during this period, 35 percent of the country's natural increase. Between 1911 and 1921, the rate of growth was only 0.4 percent per year as workers left Jamaica for Costa Rican banana plantations, Cuban sugar estates, and the Panama Canal. The burgeoning industries of the United States and Canada also attracted many Jamaicans during this period. Thousands of Jamaicans, however, returned home with the fall of sugar prices precipitated by the Great Depression. As a result from 1921 to 1954, the rate of population growth rose, averaging 1.7 percent per year.
Increased emigration after World War II reduced the rate of population growth once again. Between 1954 and 1970, the rate of growth was only 1.4 percent because large numbers of Jamaicans moved to Britain, the United States, Canada, and elsewhere. This exodus continued unabated during the 1970s and early 1980s, when 276,200 men and women, over 10 percent of the total population, departed. A significant percentage of the emigrants were skilled workers, technicians, doctors, and managers, thus creating a huge drain on the human resources of Jamaican society. The world economic recession of the 1980s reduced opportunities for migration as a number of countries tightened their immigration laws. Nevertheless, by the mid-1980s, it was estimated that more than half of all Jamaicans lived outside the island.
In July 1983 the Jamaican Parliament adopted the National Population Policy, which was developed by the Population Policy Task Force under the auspices of the Ministry of Health. The objectives of the policy were to achieve a population not in excess of 3 million by the year 2000; to promote health and increase the life expectancy of the population; to create employment opportunities and reduce unemployment, underemployment, and emigration; to provide access to family-planning services for all Jamaicans and reduce the average number of children per family from four to two, thus achieving replacement fertility levels; to promote balanced rural, urban, and regional development to achieve an optimal spatial distribution of population; and to improve the satisfaction of basic needs and the quality of life through improved housing, nutrition, education, and environmental conditions.
Family planning services have been visible, accessible, and active in Jamaica since the 1960s. The success of family planning reduced the country's birth rate by about 35 percent from 1965 to 1985. The Planning Institute of Jamaica, a government agency, estimated that the crude birth rate (the annual number of births per 1,000 population) was 24.3 per 1,000 in 1985. The total fertility rate (the average number of children born to a woman during her lifetime) decreased from 5.5 in 1970 to 3.5 by 1983. The government perceived its population goal of 3 million or less by the year 2000 as feasible only if the yearly population growth rate did not exceed 1.6 percent and the replacement fertility rate were two children per woman.
The crude death rate (the annual number of deaths per 1,000 population) was quite low at 6 per 1,000 population in 1985. By comparison, the United States had a crude death rate of 9 per 1,000 in the same year. Between 1965 and 1985, Jamaica's crude death rate declined by 44 percent, the result of significant levels of investment in health care delivery systems and improved sanitation facilities during the 1970s. In 1985 life expectancy at birth (the average number of years a newborn infant can expect to live under current mortality levels) was very high at seventy-three years. The infant mortality rate (the annual number of deaths of children younger than 1 year old per 1,000 births) was 20 per 1,000 births during the mid-1980, and this rate was consistent with that of 23 per 1,000 found in other English-speaking Caribbean islands.
Jamaica, like most of the other Commonwealth Caribbean islands, was densely populated. In 1986 its estimated population density was 209.62 persons per square kilometer. In terms of arable land, the population totaled nearly 1,000 persons per square kilometer, making it one of the most densely populated countries in the world. Since the 1960s, the population has become increasingly urban. In 1960, only 34 percent of the population lived in urban areas, but in the late 1980s, more than 50 percent of the population was urban. The heavily urbanized parishes of Kingston, St. Andrew, St. James, and St. Catherine accounted for 48.3 percent of Jamaica's total population in 1983.
Jamaica is a country of young people. Roughly 40 percent of the population was under fifteen years of age in the late 1980s. The fastest-growing age groups were those ten to thirty-four years of age and those seventy and over. Slower growth for middle-aged groups was generally explained by their greater tendency to emigrate. The 1982 census revealed that the group up to nine years old was the only one not becoming larger; this suggested both that the country's population was aging and that family planning was working. The 1982 census also revealed that 51 percent of the population was female.
The country's national motto points to the various ethnic groups present on the island. Although a predominantly black nation of West African descent, Jamaica had significant minorities of East Indians, Chinese, Europeans, Syrians, Lebanese, and numerous mixtures thereof in the late 1980s. Approximately 95 percent of all Jamaicans were of partial or total African descent, including 76 percent of complete African descent, 15 percent of Afro-European descent, and 4 percent of either Afro-East Indian or Afro-Chinese descent. Nearly 2 percent of the population was East Indian, close to 1 percent Chinese, and the remainder was made up of Europeans, peoples of the Middle East, and others. Although racial differences were not as important as class differences, the lightness of one's skin was still an issue, especially since minorities were generally members of the upper classes.
About 75 percent of Jamaica's population was Protestant, and 8 percent was Roman Catholic; various Muslim, Jewish, and spiritualist groups were also present. Rastafarians constituted roughly 5 percent of the population. Religious activities were popular, and religion played a fairly important role in society. The most striking religious trend occurring in Jamaica in the 1980s, as it was throughout the Americas, was the increasing number of charismatic or evangelical Christian groups.
Capital: KINGSTON
Population: 2,607,632
Area: 10,991 km2
Time zone:-6h compared to Italy,-7h in Italy when there is daylight saving time.
Languages: English
Religion: Predominantly Christian
Currency: Jamaican dollar (JMD)
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