Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Map

• Music popular in Saint Vincent and the Grenadine includes big drum, calypso, soca, steelpan and reggae. String band music, quadrille and bele music and traditional storytelling are also popular.

• The national anthem of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is "Saint Vincent Land so Beautiful", adopted upon independence in 1979.

• Agriculture, dominated by banana production, is the most important sector of this lower-middle-income economy. The services sector, based mostly on a growing tourist industry, is also important. The government has been relatively unsuccessful at introducing new industries, and a high unemployment rate of 22% continues. The continuing dependence on a single crop represents the biggest obstacle to the islands' development. Tropical storms wiped out substantial portions of crops in both 1994 and 1995.

• The tourism sector has considerable potential for development. The recent filming of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies on the island has helped to expose the country to the wider world. Recent growth has been stimulated by strong activity in the construction sector and an improvement in tourism.

• An international airport is currently under construction. There is a small manufacturing sector and a small offshore financial sector whose particularly restrictive secrecy laws have caused some international concern. In addition, the natives of Bequia are permitted to hunt up to four Humpback Whales per year under IWC subsistence quotas.

• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines lies to the west of Barbados south of Saint Lucia and north of Grenada in the Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, an island arc of the Caribbean Sea. The islands of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines include the main island of Saint Vincent and the northern two-thirds of the Grenadines (45 km/17 sq mi), which are a chain of small islands stretching south from Saint Vincent to Grenada.

• The island of Saint Vincent is volcanic and includes little level ground. The windward side of the island is very rocky, while the leeward side has more sandy beaches and bays. The country's highest peak is La Soufrière volcano.

• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines has its own soccer league, the NLA Premier League, and also a national (association) football team. A notable vincentian footballer is Ezra Hendrickson, former national team captain who played at several Major League Soccer clubs in the United States and is now an assistant coach with the Seattle Sounders FC.

• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines also have their own national rugby team which are ranked 74th in the world.

• The population as established in July 2009 was 104,574. The ethnic composition was 66% African descent, 20% of mixed descent, 6% East Indian, 4% Caucasian (mainly Portuguese), 2% Carib Amerindian and 3% others according to the CIA handbook de dato October 9, 2008. Most Vincentians are the descendants of African people brought to the island to work on plantations. There are other ethnic groups such as Portuguese (from Madeira) and East Indians, both brought in to work on the plantations after the abolishing of slavery by the British, and Syrians living on the island. There is also a growing Chinese population.