Jamaica

Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean, covering 10,991 square kilometres (4,244 sq mi). It is the third-largest island in the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean, after Cuba and the island of Hispaniola. Jamaica lies about 145 km (78 nmi) south of Cuba, 191 km (103 nmi) west of Hispaniola (the island containing Haiti and the Dominican Republic), and 215 km (116 nmi) southeast of the Cayman Islands (a British Overseas Territory). With 2.8 million people, Jamaica is the third-most populous Anglophone country in the Americas and the fourth-most populous country in the Caribbean. Kingston is the capital and largest city. The Indigenous Ciboney people of the island gradually came under Spanish rule after the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1494. Many of the Indigenous people either were killed or died of diseases, after which the Spanish brought large numbers of Africans to Jamaica as slaves. The island belonged to Spain under the name Santiago until 1655, when England, part of what would become the Kingdom of Great Britain, conquered it and named it Jamaica. It became an important part of the colonial British West Indies. Under Britain's colonial rule, Jamaica became a leading sugar exporter, with a plantation economy dependent on continued importation of African slaves and their descendants. The British emancipated all slaves in 1838, and many freedmen chose to have subsistence farms rather than to work on plantations. Beginning in the 1840s, the British began using Chinese and Indian indentured labourers for plantation work. Jamaica achieved independence from the United Kingdom on 6 August 1962. Jamaica is a parliamentary constitutional monarchy, with power vested in the bicameral Parliament of Jamaica, consisting of an appointed Senate and a directly elected House of Representatives. Andrew Holness has served as Prime Minister of Jamaica since March 2016. Jamaica is...