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Small Island Developing States

  • The BahamasChristopher Columbus made his first landfall in the New World on the 12th of October 1492 when he landed on an island he named San Salvador.
  • Marshall IslandsRadiocarbon dating suggests that Bikini Atoll may have been inhabited as early as 1200 BCE. Archaeological digs on other atolls found evidence of human…
  • TuvaluThree thousand years ago, Polynesians began a great migration across the Pacific Ocean. They arrived in what is now Tuvalu using double-hulled sailing canoes…
  • Antigua and BarbudaHunter-gatherers settled the islands starting around 3000 BC. They arrived on canoes from Central and South America. Carbon dating has established the…
  • GrenadaChristopher Columbus sighted the island of Grenada during his third voyage to the Americas in 1498. He named it La Concepción in honour of the Virgin Mary.
  • Saint LuciaArchaeological evidence places the first proven inhabitants of Saint Lucia, the Arawak people, on the island between 200 and 400 CE.
  • DominicaDominica first emerged from the sea during the Oligocene Epoch approximately 27 million years ago. It stands as one of the last Caribbean islands to be…
  • Saint Kitts and NevisThe Kalinago people called the island Liamuiga, which translates to fertile land. They arrived around 1300 CE and displaced earlier agricultural societies…
  • MauritiusIn 1507, Portuguese sailors blown off course from their route to India via the Mozambique channel landed on an uninhabited island.
  • American SamoaAmerican Samoa sits fourteen degrees below the equator, making it the southernmost territory of the United States. The land area covers slightly more than…
  • Federated States of MicronesiaThe Federated States of Micronesia stretches across 2,900 kilometers of the western Pacific Ocean. This island nation comprises 607 individual islands and…
  • GuamAround 1500 to 1400 BC, migrants from the Philippines arrived on Guam and began a long journey of settlement. These people were part of the Austronesian…
  • United States Virgin IslandsChristopher Columbus sighted the islands on his second voyage in 1493. He named them Santa Úrsula y las Once Mil Vírgenes after a legend about Saint Ursula…
  • Cook IslandsThe Cook Islands sit in the South Pacific Ocean, north-east of New Zealand. Fifteen islands spread across a vast stretch of water form this nation.
  • HaitiOn the 6th of December 1492, Christopher Columbus landed on the northeastern coast of Hispaniola and named the area Môle-Saint-Nicolas.
  • Puerto RicoIn 1493, Christopher Columbus arrived on the island he named San Juan Bautista. The Taíno people had already lived there for centuries before his arrival.
  • GuyanaThe name Guyana comes from an indigenous Amerindian language and means land of many waters. This vast territory lies between latitudes 1° and 9°N, and…
  • JamaicaChristopher Columbus first set foot on the island in 1494 during his second voyage to the Americas. He claimed the land for Spain and named it Santiago.
  • Solomon IslandsArchaeological evidence from Kilu Cave on Buka Island reveals human presence in the Solomon Islands between 30,000 and 28,000 BC.
  • SingaporeIn 1365, the Javanese eulogy Nagarakretagama recorded a place called Temasek, meaning Sea Town, as a trading port under the influence of the Majapahit Empire.
  • CubaCuba is an archipelago of 4,195 islands, cays and islets located in the northern Caribbean Sea at the convergence of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic…
  • MaldivesThe Maldives stretches across the equator from Ihavandhippolhu Atoll in the north to Addu Atoll in the south. This chain of 26 atolls covers roughly 90,000…