St Lucia country profile
Tourism is the main source of income for St Lucia and the industry is its biggest employer.
Map of St Lucia
Tourism is the main source of income for St Lucia and the industry is its biggest employer.
The tropical eastern Caribbean island boasts beaches, mountains, exotic plants and the Qualibou volcano with its boiling sulphur springs.
Before the visitor influx, banana exports sustained St Lucia, especially after 1964 when it stopped producing sugar cane.
Crops such as mangoes and avocados are also grown, but bananas are the biggest source of foreign exchange after tourism.
Most St Lucians are the descendants of African slaves, brought in by the British in the 19th Century to work on sugar plantations.
Although St Lucia is a former British colony, the French settled in the 17th Century. Their influence lives on in the patois spoken in the country.
ST LUCIA: FACTS
Capital: Castries
Area: 617 sq km
Population: 184,900
Languages: English, St Lucian Creole
Life expectancy: 71 years (men) 77 years (women)
LEADERS
Head of state: Charles III, represented by a governor-general
Prime Minister: Philip Joseph Pierre
St. Lucia's Prime Minister Philip Joseph Pierre
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Philip Joseph Pierre was sworn in prime minister on 29 July 2021, after his St Lucia Labour Party (SLP) won a clear victory in a general election
The SLP won 13 of the 17 seats while the outgoing United Workers Party lost nine of its eleven seats. It was the fourth consecutive election in which the incumbent government lost.
MEDIA
St Lucia's Pitons
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Image caption,
The area around the Pitons, two volcanic landmarks, is a Unesco World Heritage Site that includes hot springs, corals and subtropical wet forest
St Lucia's newspapers and broadcasters are mainly privately-owned and carry a range of views.
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TIMELINE
1758, Bellin Map of Saint Lucia, Sainte Lucie, West Indies
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Image caption,
1758 French map of Saint Lucia
Some key dates in St Lucia's history:
1501 - St Lucia sighted by Christopher Columbus.
1635 - The French establish a colony on St Lucia.
1660 - The French sign a treaty with the indigenous Carib people.
1814 - France cedes St Lucia to Britain following the Treaty of Paris; Britain proclaims the island a crown colony and brings in African slaves to work on the sugar cane plantations.
1834 - Slavery abolished.
1967 - St Lucia becomes fully self-governing in internal affairs, with Britain remaining in charge of external matters and defence.
1979 - St Lucia becomes independent.
1992 - Derek Walcott, a native of the capital, Castries, wins the Nobel Prize for literature.
2002 - Tropical Storm Lili destroys about half of the banana crop. In some places entire plantations are wiped out.
2003 - Parliament amends constitution to replace oath of allegiance to British monarch with pledge of loyalty to St Lucians.
Castries, the capital of St Lucia
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Image caption,
Castries, the capital, boasts a natural deep water harbour. It was founded in 1650
BBC Monitoring