Trinidad and Tobago

Full name of country: Republic of Trinidad and Tobago

Region: Central America and Caribbean

Official language: English

Population: 1,408,966 (2024 est.)

Nationality: Trinidadian(s), Tobagonian(s) (noun), Trinidadian, Tobagonian (adjective)

Land area: 5,128 sq km (1,980 sq miles)

Capital: Port of Spain

National anthem: "Forged from the Love of Liberty," by Patrick Stanislaus Castagne

National holiday: Independence Day, August 31 (1962)

Population growth: 0.1% (2024 est.)

Time zone: UTC –4

Flag: The flag of Trinidad and Tobago is red with a black diagonal band edged in white that runs from its upper-right side to its lower left.

Motto: “Together we aspire, together we achieve”

Independence: August 31, 1962 (from the UK)

Government type: parliamentary republic

Suffrage: 18 years of age; universal

Legal system: English common law; judicial review of legislative acts in the Supreme Court

Once a central point in the trading network of the Carib people, Trinidad and Tobago is now an island nation with a modern economy based on petroleum and tourism. Trinidad is the larger of the two islands, with an area about the size of the US state of Rhode Island. Together with its smaller and less developed counterpart of Tobago, Trinidad has achieved a level of economic and political stability envied by many of its Caribbean neighbors.

Trinidad and Tobago were joined administratively by the British government in 1889 and received their independence as a single nation in 1962.

Note: unless otherwise indicated, statistical data in this article is sourced from the CIA World Factbook, as cited in the bibliography.

People and Culture

Population: The intertwined histories of European colonization, the slave trade, and indentured servitude left Trinidad and Tobago with an astounding variety of inhabitants. At the time of the 2011 census, an estimated 35.4 percent of country's residents were descended of East Indian immigrants. Another 34.2 percent were of African descent, 7.7 percent were mixed African and East Indian descent, 15.3 percent were of another admixture, and the remainder were of various other ethnic groups. Languages on the island are also varied, including Spanish, Hindustani, French, Chinese, and the official language, English.

As of the 2011 census, just over 21.6 percent of Trinidadians and Tobagonians were Roman Catholic. Followers of Hinduism made up another 18.2 percent of the population, and Protestant groups, including Anglican, Baptist, Pentecostal, and Seventh-Day Adventist Churches, claimed a total of 32.1 percent of the islands' populations as followers. About 5 percent of islanders were Muslim.

Trinidad and Tobago's HDI value for 2022 is 0.814— which put the country in the Very High human development category—positioning it at 60 out of 193 countries and territories. The country's median age is 38.5 years old (2024 estimate). At 10.5 births per 1,000 population, Trinidad and Tobago's birth rate is one of the highest in the world and substantially higher than its death rate of 8.6 deaths per 1,000 (2024 estimate). A fairly high emigration rate has kept the islands' population stable.

Life expectancy in Trinidad and Tobago is 74.6 years for men and 78.4 years for women according to 2024 estimates. Infant mortality is still high at 15.1 deaths per 1,000 live births (2024 estimate).

Indigenous People: The earliest known settlers on Trinidad and Tobago were Indigenous tribes like the Arawak. These people migrated throughout what we now call the Caribbean in canoes as part of an extensive trading network that seems to have originated near Venezuela. When Christopher Columbus landed on Trinidad in 1498, earlier tribes had been almost entirely displaced by the Carib people.

Historians estimate that the Carib amounted to more than forty thousand people living on Trinidad and Tobago when Columbus arrived. By the early part of the sixteenth century, Spanish traders were enslaving the Trinidadian Carib for colonial work in South America. In spite of a number of armed revolts and well-sustained resistance against the Spanish, and later French, colonizers, the Carib population was decimated by the end of the eighteenth century. Only the small reservation of Arima was left to Carib peoples, who had by then been converted to Roman Catholicism. The town of Arima was founded by Capuchin monks in 1757.

In modern Trinidad and Tobago, residents of Carib descent are a small minority, but the Amerindian history of the island is evident in island foods, place names, and the small Carib community of Arima. Today, Arima is led nominally by a Carib queen, chosen from among the women in the community. The Carib language has been irretrievably lost, along with most precolonial customs.

In the twenty years after the British Empire set up its colonial base on Trinidad in 1763, an estimated ten thousand African people were forcibly brought to the small island as enslaved people to work the sugar, cotton, and indigo plantations.

Education: In 2020, Trinidad and Tobago had more than 483 primary schools and 141 secondary schools throughout the two islands. Children in the country may attend an early childhood education center for one or two years prior to primary school, which is begun at age five. Primary school is followed by a standard examination to determine secondary school placement.

Secondary education, referred to as Forms, is compulsory through the age of sixteen. Once a student has completed Forms 1 through 5, Lower and Upper Sixth Forms are optional.

Postsecondary institutions include a University of the West Indies campus, the University of Trinidad and Tobago, the Institute of Technology, the Trinidad and Tobago Hospitality and Tourism Institute, and the College of Science, Technology, and Applied Arts of Trinidad and Tobago.

Health Care: Trinidad and Tobago restructured its national health care system, which operates through a network of regional health authorities (RHAs). Under annual service agreements with the Ministry of Health, RHAs provide basic medical care to residents in their designated regions.

Much of this care is provided through public health clinics and centers. Patients who need advanced care are referred to the government's nine hospitals.

Many residents have considered Trinidad and Tobago's public health services to be substandard, and those who can afford it use private providers. Private health-care providers require patients to pay substantial fees, and wealthier residents often use employer-provided health insurance and supplemental insurance policies.

Food: Trinidad's food shows the direct influences of Caribbean, Creole, Indian, Chinese, Syrian, Lebanese, Italian, British, and North American cuisine. Tropical and subtropical fruits are available year-round on the islands and include several varieties of mangos, tangerines, paw paws, bananas, plantains, watermelons, pineapples, oranges, sapodillas, and guavas, among others.

Breakfast food might include coconut breads or cassava with butter, black pudding, or salted fish. An East Indian–style lunch or dinner could include roti (a pastry stuffed with curried vegetables or meats) or potato pies. A Creole brown-down is spicy stewed meat or fish served with sweet, starchy vegetables. Chinese meat and fish dishes usually come in soy-based sauces with traditional Chinese vegetables. Western-style hamburgers, pizza, and fried chicken are easy to find throughout the islands' towns.

Arts & Entertainment: Trinidad and Tobago has served as an incubator for some of the Caribbean region's most significant and renowned arts, music, and literature.

As the birthplace of calypso music, Trinidad has spread steel drum sounds, African rhythms, and slavery-derived musical inflections throughout the world. The grandfather of calypso, the Mighty Sparrow, was a Trinidadian native.

Literary figures V. S. Naipaul, Shiva Naipaul, and C. L. R. James from Trinidad and Tobago have contributed not only to the Caribbean literary tradition, but also to the English literary canon worldwide. Nobel Prize winner Derek Walcott made Trinidad home for much of his life.

Holidays: Trinidad and Tobago's official Christian holidays include Good Friday, Easter Monday, Corpus Christi, and Christmas. Spiritual (Shouter) Baptist religion, adherents of a syncretic Protestant and West African faith, was banned under British rule; Spiritual Baptist Liberation Day, commemorated on March 30, recalls the repeal of that prohibition. The government also recognizes other religions in the country with public holidays. Diwali is the Hindu festival of lights, an international celebration of the triumph of light over darkness that takes place in the autumn. Eid-al-Fitr is Islam's celebration to mark the end of the Ramadan month of fasting and prayer and takes place in summer or autumn according to the Muslim lunar calendar.

Trinidad and Tobago is best known for its Lenten Carnival. This traditional Roman Catholic day of parades, feasting, music, and dance marks the day before Ash Wednesday, when Roman Catholics begin their period of prayer and fasting in preparation for Easter. Trinidad traditionally hosts one of the most raucous and colorful Carnivals of any country in the Caribbean.

The country celebrates the arrival of East Indian emigrants brought by British colonizers on May 30, Labour Day in June, Emancipation Day on August 1, Independence Day on August 31, Republic Day on September 24, and Boxing Day on December 26.

Environment and Geography

Topography: Trinidad and Tobago are both low, generally flat islands that are believed to have broken off from the South American continent. The two islands lie just northeast of Venezuela, forming the Gulf of Paria in between the islands and the mainland.

Tobago, with an area of 300 square kilometers (186 square miles), is 34 kilometers (21 miles) northeast of Trinidad. The larger island, Trinidad, is 81 kilometers (51 miles) long and 57 to 73 kilometers (35 to 45 miles) wide, with an area of 4,828 square kilometers (3,000 square miles).

Though far more developed than Tobago, Trinidad still has extensive woodlands and undeveloped forest covering approximately half of the island. Gorges, caves, river basins, waterfalls, mangrove swamps, and lagoons are found on both islands.

Trinidad's gentle hills and plains rise into two low mountain ranges in the south and center of the island. In the northern section of the island, elevations are higher. Trinidad's highest point of elevation is on El Cerro del Aripo, at 940 meters (3,080 feet) above sea level.

Discharge into the Gulf of Paria from South America's rivers (especially the Orinoco) has colored Trinidad's coastal waters a characteristic green.

Natural Resources: Trinidad and Tobago's natural resources include petroleum, natural gas, and asphalt, which have been responsible for much of the country's wealth since independence. The islands' temperate tropical climate, beaches, and location just outside the path of Atlantic hurricanes are significant factors in its thriving tourist industry.

Plants & Animals: Trinidad and Tobago has over two thousand species of flowering plants, which include around seven hundred different varieties of orchid. The varied tropical climate and wetlands host more than four hundred bird species. Native trees include purpleheart, mora, and crappo.

Trinidad and Tobago's island habitats have a little more than one hundred mammal species, seventy reptile varieties, and over six hundred types of butterfly. Among the islands' mammals, more than fifty species of bats thrive in forests and caves.

Climate: Northeast trade winds moderate Trinidad and Tobago’s tropical climate. Temperatures throughout the year average 31 degrees Celsius (87 degrees Fahrenheit) during the day and 21 degrees Celsius (69 degrees Fahrenheit) at night.

Rainfall is heavier between June and December, with the exception of the annual September dry spell known as Petite Carême. During July, rainfall averages peak at six centimeters (two inches). January to May is the dry season, with a rainfall average of only one centimeter (less than half an inch).

Economy

Trinidad and Tobago is the top exporter of crude oil and natural gas in the Caribbean region. The islands have proven reserves of 243 million barrels of oil and 298 billion cubic meters of natural gas (2021 est.).

In 2023, the per capita gross domestic product (GDP, purchasing power parity) was estimated at US$28,500. About 47.8 percent of the total GDP in 2022 came from the service sector, industry accounted for another 48.9 percent, and agriculture provided less than 1.1 percent. As compared to other Caribbean nations, far more Trinidadians and Tobagonians are employed, with a national unemployment rate of 4.21 percent in 2023.

Industry: Historically, the islands' most profitable industries have been fuels and chemicals, such as ammonia and methanol. Other industries include steel manufacture, food processing, beverage production, cement production, and cotton textile manufacturing. The capital, Port of Spain, has long been the hub for much industry.

Agriculture: Trinidad and Tobago produces cassava, cocoa, coconut water, cucumbers, dasheen, eggplant, hot peppers, pommecythere, pumpkins, and tomatoes. Local farms also harvest vegetables and raise poultry. Most agricultural activity is concentrated on Tobago.

Tourism: Trinidad and Tobago's tourist industry, though a significant part of the national economy, is relatively small in comparison with other Caribbean island nations. The government undertook projects beginning in the 1980s to expand and update seaports and airports to facilitate cruise ship arrivals and increased air traffic. Tourism grew at a modest pace throughout the end of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. In 2019, 390,110 foreigners visited the country. Travel and tourism contributed 7.8 percent of the national GDP that year and provided 8.5 percent of employment. Following the global COVID-19 pandemic that began in 2020, tourist arrivals plummeted to just over 95,000 in 2020. By 2022 those numbers had begun to rebound, however, with more than 227,000 visitors to the island nation that year, according to the government's Central Statistical Office.

Government

Trinidad and Tobago received its independence from the British government on August 31, 1962. British mercantile interests had seized the islands from Spain in 1797, after two hundred years of battles among French, Dutch, and Spanish interests for Trinidad. Under the Spanish and then the British, plantation owners imported enslaved people from Africa and elsewhere, the Spanish having decimated Indigenous populations on the islands.

Under British rule, colonizers also brought over thousands of indentured servants, mostly from eastern India, in order to work plantations. After slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire in 1830, Trinidad's economy began its long, slow decline. Tobago became a ward of the larger island in 1889.

The British government granted universal suffrage in the islands in 1946 and independence in 1962, but only after a long period of strikes, protests, and demands for reform from the islands' populations.

Politics in Trinidad and Tobago have been fairly stable since independence, with the notable exception of a 1990 coup, in which a minority group briefly gained control of the parliament building and held forty-five hostages, including the prime minister.

Trinidad and Tobago remains a parliamentary republic, with a president serving as head of state and a prime minister serving as head of government. An electoral college formed by members of the legislature elects the president to five-year terms.

The bicameral parliament consists of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Of the Senate's thirty-one members, sixteen are chosen by the ruling party, nine by the president, and six by the opposition. Senators serve five-year terms. The forty-one members of the House of Representatives are elected by popular vote while the speaker of the house is selected outside parliament. Representatives also serve five-year terms. Tobago has its own House of Assembly, with sixteen members serving four-year terms.

Interesting Facts

• The island of Tobago contains the oldest protected rainforest in the Western Hemisphere.
• Christopher Columbus named Trinidad after the Holy Trinity of Christianity when he sighted the island in 1492.
• Trinidad has the world's largest natural deposit of asphalt, a 99-acre, 246-foot deep area known as Pitch Lake.

Bibliography

"Economic Impact Reports." World Travel and Tourism Council, 2020, wttc.org/Research/Economic-Impact. Accessed 24 Aug. 2020.

"Services for Citizens." TTConnect, Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, www.ttconnect.gov.tt/gortt/portal/ttconnect/!ut/p/a1. Accessed 27 Aug. 2020.

Teelucksingh, Jerome. Labour and the Decolonization Struggle in Trinidad and Tobago. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

"Travel Statistics." Central Statistical Office, Government of Trinidad and Tobago, cso.gov.tt/subjects/travel-and-tourism/travel-statistics/. Accessed 28 Nov. 2023.

"Trinidad and Tobago." Human Development Reports, United Nations Development Programme, 13 Mar. 2024, hdr.undp.org/data-center/specific-country-data#/countries/TTO. Accessed 15 Jan. 2025

"Trinidad and Tobago." The World Bank, 2024, data.worldbank.org/country/trinidad-and-tobago. Accessed 15 Jan. 2025.

"Trinidad and Tobago." The World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency, 7 Jan. 2025, www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/trinidad-and-tobago/. Accessed 15 Jan. 2025.

"Trinidad and Tobago: History." The Commonwealth, thecommonwealth.org/our-member-countries/trinidad-and-tobago/history. Accessed 22 July 2016.