🇧🇸The Bahamas

The Bahamas is an archipelago of hundreds of islands and cays scattered across the clear waters of the western Atlantic, southeast of Florida. Renowned for powder-white beaches and shallow turquoise seas, it is one of the Caribbean region's premier tourism and banking destinations. Its capital, Nassau, sits on the island of New Providence.

The nation spans about 700 low-lying islands and thousands of cays, though only a few dozen are inhabited. The terrain is flat, formed of coral limestone, and the surrounding banks create the famously luminous shallow waters. The climate is tropical and tempered by trade winds, with a hurricane season in summer and autumn.

Bahamian culture is rooted in African and British heritage, expressed most vividly in Junkanoo, an exuberant street parade of music, costume and dance held around Christmas and New Year. Conch features heavily in the cuisine, and rake-and-scrape music, sailing and a relaxed island rhythm define daily life.

The islands were home to the Lucayan people when Christopher Columbus made his first New World landfall here in 1492. Later a British colony and a notorious haven for pirates, the Bahamas became independent within the Commonwealth in 1973, building a prosperous economy on tourism and financial services.