🇹🇹Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago is a twin-island nation off the northeastern coast of Venezuela, the southernmost country in the Caribbean. Energetic and cosmopolitan, it is the birthplace of the steelpan, calypso and soca, and home to one of the world's great Carnivals. Oil and gas give it one of the most industrialised economies in the region.

Trinidad, the larger island, is geologically a continental fragment of South America, with forested hills and the unusual Pitch Lake of natural asphalt. Tobago, to the northeast, is smaller, greener and more tranquil, ringed by reefs and rainforest. The climate is tropical with wet and dry seasons.

The islands are a vibrant cultural mosaic of African, Indian, European, Chinese and Middle Eastern roots, reflected in festivals, food and faith. Carnival is the cultural centrepiece, a riot of music, mas costumes and competition, and the country gave the world the steelpan, the only acoustic instrument invented in the 20th century.

Home to Indigenous peoples and later a Spanish and then British colony, the islands developed through sugar and later oil. Trinidad and Tobago gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1962 and became a republic in 1976, building wealth on its substantial petroleum and natural gas reserves.