Barbados Girls Pearls Girls Fashion Jewelry 65

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By Aamir Mannan.

Identification. Barbadians are people born on Barbados and people born elsewhere who have at least one Barbadian parent and maintain cultural ties to the nation. There are emigrant Barbadians communities in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Guyana that maintain active ties with their families and friends on the island. Barbadians recognize regional identities that correspond to parish districts and distinctive regional accents.

Location and Geography. Barbados is a coral limestone outcropping of the South American continental shelf that lies in the western Atlantic Ocean, one hundred miles (160 kilometers) east of the island of Saint Lucia and two hundred miles (320 kilometers) north of Trinidad and the northern coast of South America. Barbados has low, rolling hills, and microclimate variations from rain forest to semidesert.

Demography. More than 260,000 people live on this island of 166 square miles (430 square kilometers), with a population density of 1,548 people per square mile (597.7 per square kilometer) in 1996. Large populations have characterized the nation almost since its inception. As early as 1680, the island was home to seventy thousand people.

Until 1960, high birth and death rates generated a large number of young people. Barbadians emigrated in large numbers to the United Kingdom and in smaller numbers to the United States and Canada. Death rates and birth rates fell rapidly after 1960. Aided by continuing emigration among the young and immigration among the elderly, the population aged rapidly. By the year 2050, the proportion of the population age sixty-five and over will range between 25 and 33 percent of the total population.