Most of the residents are black or mixed race – the descendants of former slaves. Only about 6% of the population are white – the majority of them Dutch.
There are also descendants of Sephardic Jews from Spain and Portugal who fled the Inquisition in the 17th century.
Guest workers and their families – from Asia, South America and the Caribbean – who were active in the then flourishing oil industry on Curacao also live here.
National languages
The national languages are Dutch, Papiamentu and English. But some people also understand Spanish and even German.
Papiamentu is a Creole language spoken by around 330,000 people on the ABC Islands in the Caribbean.
On Sint Maarten it is understood by around 90% of the population. Along with Aruba and Bonair, Curacao is one of the ABC islands.
Capital
Willemstad
The capital of Curacao is Willemstad, the center of which with the port and the suburbs Scharloo and Pietermaai was entered on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1997.
The city has around 140,000 residents.
Curaçao: geography
Area and boundaries
The island of Curaçao is located off the coast of Venezuela – around 85 km east of the peninsula and covers an area of 444 km². Its northern tip is about 75 km east of Aruba and about 50 km west of Bonair. The island belongs to the so-called ABC island and thus to the southern Lesser Antilles. In addition to Curaçao, Aruba and Bonaire also belong to the ABC Islands. However, according to their geographical location, the islands should be called ACB islands. Check topmbadirectory for politics, flags, famous people, animals and plants of Curacao.
About 11 km southeast of the island is the small, uninhabited island “Klein Curacao”, which is a popular bathing and diving region
Borders
The island has no direct neighbors and therefore no national borders.
Curacao can be divided geologically as follows:
Curacao Lava Formation This formation is the oldest – with a thickness of up to 5,000 m, whereby it is significantly thicker on the northwest side than in the southeast.
Knip group
Middle Curacao Formation According to its name, it is located in the middle part of the island
Limestone Formation The limestone formations surround the island to a certain extent
The eastern end of the island is rather flat and sparsely populated and also has a poorly developed road network.
Due to the low precipitation of an average of 500 mm, the island makes a rather barren impression, with the resulting limited number of different species of plants and animals.
Coastline
Curaçao has a coast to the Caribbean with a total length of around 365 km.
Longitude and latitude
The island extends over the following geographical latitude (abbreviation Δφ) and geographical longitude (abbreviation Δλ):
Δφ = from 12 ° 02 ‘to 12 ° 24’ north latitude Δλ = from 068 ° 49 ‘to 069 ° 10’ west longitude
You can find detailed information on this subject under Longitude and Latitude.
Legal time on Curaçao
For Curaçao, the following value applies to Central European Time (CET), i.e. the time (without summer time). A minus sign means that it is earlier there and a plus sign that it is later than after CET:
Δt (CET) = – 5 h
Further and detailed explanations of the time can be found under Time zones, time.
The highest point of the sun in Willemstad
Willemstad, the capital of the island, lies at a northern latitude of around φ = 12 ° – and thus in the middle of the tropics.
If the declination δ of the sun has the value of 12 ° N, and thus the image point of the sun is above the island or Brades, the sun is perpendicular there. This happens exactly twice a year, roughly 46 days after March 21st and then again 46 days before September 21st.
Attention
If the image point of the sun and thus the declination δ is north of the latitude of Willemstad, the sun is not in the south at noon, as in our latitudes, but in the north. In this case, the sun moves from east to north to west, where, like us, it sets.
Further and detailed explanations can be found under Sun position
Christoffelberg
The highest mountain – or better said – the highest point on the island is the Christoffelberg with a height of 375 m, which is located in the park of the same name in the northeast of the island.
Caribbean
The island of Curaçao is located in the south of the Caribbean off the coast of Venezuela.
The Caribbean
The Caribbean is a marginal sea of the Atlantic and lies between the islands of the Caribbean and the American continent. In the west, Mexico and other Central American states border the Caribbean. In the south of Colombia and Venezuela. The border in the east and north form the following islands or archipelagos starting from Venezuela in a semi-circle to the “actual” Atlantic: Trinidad and Tabago, Grenada, St. Lucia, Dominica, British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Haiti and Cuba.
The deepest point in the Caribbean is the Cayman Rift between Jamaica and the Cayman Islands with a depth of 7,680 m. Together with the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean forms the “American Mediterranean”.
