This article will be about the country with the beautiful turquoise seas, the birthplace of the famous singer Rihanna and known for their colorful houses; Barbados!

I have always wanted to visit Barbados after I’ve seen the beautiful photos from the little island but that also made me realize that I do not know a lot about Barbados except that it’s very photogenic, so in this article we will learn more about the island.

Barbados has an area of 439 square kilometers which makes it the 183rd largest country in the world (out of a total of 195 countries). Barbados has a population of 287 025 people and is ranked the 15th country in the world with the most population density. The biggest city in Barbados is Bridgetown, which also is the capital city of Barbados. In 2014, the city’s population was around 110 000 habitants. Barbados became independent on November 30th 1966 and also became a member of the Commonwealth realm and have Elizabeth II as its queen and head of state. However, Barbados is going to remove her as the head of state on November 30th 2021 and become a republic. The official language of Barbados is English.

The climate in Barbados is rather special, they generally have two seasons; wet season and dry season. The wet season is around June to December and it’s usually temperatures around 23-31 degrees Celsius (73-88 degrees Fahrenheit). The wet season is usually when the annual rainfall happens and it also tends to be the time of the year when the risk of a tropical storm to happen is the highest. However, Barbados is often spared the worst effects of the tropical storms and the country is located just outside the hurricane strike zone. On average, a major hurricane hits the country once every 26 years. The dry season is around December to May and during this season the temperatures is around 21-31 degrees Celsius (70-88 degrees Fahrenheit).

Barbados is a parliamentary democracy since its independence in 1966. As of now, their head of state is Queen Elizabeth II and locally she is being represented by the Governor-General of Barbados who currently is Sandra Mason. Barbados has a two-party system, which means there’s two dominant political parties that are trying to win the majority in the parliament. The two parties are the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) and the Barbados Labour Party (BLP), which the latest currently has the majority in the parliament. The House of Assembly consists of 31 representatives while the Senate of Barbados consists of 21 senators. During the general election in 2018, the BLP got 30 out of the 31 seats in the House of Assembly and the remaining one seat went to the party “People’s Party for Democracy and Development” (PdP). The election was a total fiasco for the DLP which ended up with zero seats in the House of Assembly. It’s the Governor-General that appoints the seats in the senate of Barbados and the current 21 seats in the senate is divided 12 seats to BLP, 2 seats to PdP and 7 seats to independents, which gives the BLP the majority in both chambers. The Prime Minister of Barbados is Mia Mottley (party leader of BLP).