So... Rihanna's from here...
*Silent Moment*
*Music Intro*
It's time to learn Geography NOW!!!
Hey everybody, I'm your host Paul Barbato, not Barbado, I grew up with that alot as a kid
and today we're gonna upgrados to the Barbados.
So let's disect the flag, and trust me, this one's gonna be insanos.
*crowd laughter*
*Tickling Sound*
BAM!
The first thing you may notice about the flag is that there is a freaking trident on it,
commonly referred to as the broken trident,
it represents the nation of Barbados breaking away from the historical constitutional ties as a former British colony.
The three points represent the 3 principals of democracy Government of, for and by the people
The vertical band of gold representing the sand of Barbados' beaches
and the blue represents the sea and the sky of Barbados.
I like flags with weapons...
*Political geography*
Alright, so here is where Barbados is located.
Barbados is locaded in the Atlantic Ocean, just east of Saint Vincent and The Grenadines in the Caribbean
You would think Barbados is part of the Caribbean but you'll be wrong and fail because technically it's located a 100 miles out in the Atlantic Ocean
but you're not that wrong and failed because it's also considered a part of the Caribbean by pretty much everybody else
so it's not that big of a deal and I'm sorry I love you guys.
Anyway!
Essentially, Barbados is kinda awkwardly stuck between the two
It's like vampire Carribean and werewolf Atlantic.
Barbados, I will always love you, for all eternity
*Breathless*
No Barbados, I am the only one for you, I will always love you
*Breathless*
Alot of people say that the shape of Barbados looks like a pear, or a leg of mutton
I personally think it looks like a thumbs up... just without any of the other fingers
Yeah!
In terms of its borders, things are gonna get really easy because
Barbados is just one, single island...
Like, seriously, there are no other affiliated islands,
just one, lonely island...
The total land area is about 430 square kilometers
and has a coastline length of about 97 kilometers
So you can drive around the island in less than a day,
or you could powercrawl across the entire island in about 30 hours with no rests and no stops
The capital is Bridgetown, located in the southwest part of the island
and the country is divided into eleven perishes.
In each perish you can find delightfully named towns like Friendship and Pie Corner.
I wish this whole country was made of pie.
Is it? Let's find out in:
*Physical Geography*
No, it's not made of pie.
And unlike many other islands in the area it's made up of over 85% coral limestone.
Mm... lime...
Barbados is also unique in that its geographic location avoids catastrophy very well
Let's elaborate
First of all, if you look at a map, all the other islands of the lesser antilles form an ark alongside a tectonic plate
and are like, volcanic and stuff...
Barbados is way out in the east and does not have any volcanos
and add on top of that it's outside of the hurricane belt
meaning that most hurricanes generally miss or barely grace Barbados
Barbados is all like:
Man whatever, I do what I want I don't need no volcano y'all, I'm hot enough as it is
and y'all hurricanes, out of my face, out of my face.
Barbados, just like many of the other Caribbean islands, is generally flat
but now, here's the thing
a lot of the land is arable, about three quarters
but... they aren't really dependent on agriculture anymore.
Before the 1950s, Barbados was kind of like, on a sugar high
Sugar production dominated the economy, but, like most sugar highs:
seizure and death...
nah, just kidding.
No, but seriously, sugar prices dramatically fell.
Fortunately, Barbados was smart and shifted their focus to other means of revenue like tourism, business and like many other adorable islands,
off shore banking sectors as they decided to become kind of somewhat of a tax heaven
which drew in tons of international investors.
Which just goes to show, not charging people for things will definitely make them like you.
Oh yeah, and Barbados has some beatiful beaches, coral reefs and caves.
But they've always been huge fans of rum.
In fact, they are home to the oldest rum distillery in the world which opened up in the piraty years of the early 1700s
Mount Gay *hehe, gay* Mount Gay Rum.
There's a saying that Barbados has as many churches as rum shops and to this day, rum alone makes up about 9% of the entire economy.
Most of the rum was made from whatever leftover sugar was from the sugar high.
Church! Sugar! Rum! That's all you need in Barbados
toss in a Rihanna and then, bam!
Well Rihanna is one Barbadian but let's talk about the rest
*Demographics*
Hey, what do you call a newborn Barbadian?
A Bar-BABY-an!
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Okay, I just had to open this with something
Barbados has about 285,000 people, or a few more than Vanuatu
90% of all Barbadians are of Afro-Caribbean descent
or mixed descent
and the remaining 10% of the population include groups of Europeans along with asians
As mentioned before, there are lots of churches in Barbados, as 95% of the population identifies as Christian
of which 70% are regularly active
The largest denominations are Anglican and other branches like Methodist and Baptist
Barbados is also known to live long
Barbados and Japan have the highest per capita occurences of Centenarians in the world
Must be something in that rum
Barbados is the only country in the Caribbean to have been a colony of the British empire for over 300 years
which is why it is affectionally called sometimes as little England
Of course, English is the official language but with a distinguishable but subtle Barbadian dialect known as Bajan
Located in the South West part of the country is Bridgetown, the capital, which has a little more than a third of the population
Bridgetown keeps it old school, they like to maintain alot of their colonial buildings from a long time ago
Also if you go to Barbados you will most likely return as they have the highest repeat visitor factor in the region at 39%
Mainly because Barbadians are so super nice and friendly
Also, it's so great to visit that it's one of the only places in the world that George Washington ever travelled outside of the U.S.
Of course, culturally, they enjoy alot of steel drum clipsal music, carnival, and they have a harvest festival called Crop Up
And more recently Rihanna's birthday has actually become a very important day for Barbados
and whenever she comes back to the locals, they'll tell you that they love her, they're proud of her, but they don't treat her like royalty, she's just like one of the family
Barbadians are also flying fish fanatics, they have flying fish coins, flying fish sculptures, flying fish on their coat of arms, flying fish holograms on their passports
They're even known as the "Land of the flying fish"
And the national dish is cou cou which is a paste made out of corn meal and ocra
and flying fish
They love flying fish so much, that they eat them, as you do with everything that you love...
Finding Nemo got it wrong, in Barbados, fish are friends AND food *hehehe*
Speaking of friends...
*Friend Zone*
Barbados loves people
For the most parts, they have great relationships with all their neighbours especially the ones in the Caricom community as Barbados was a founding member of Caricom
Many Barbadians actually also have family members in many of these island nations
They have 6 official on-site Embassies from other countries but also have many off-side Embassies in countries like Colombia, Denmark, and France
hosted in other countries like Jamaica, Mexico and Belgium
Otherwise, they have nearly 20 consulates in other countries
When it comes to the UK, not only do they have a tight historical relationship but also a modern-day diplomatic one displays a great cultural affection
Barbados is a commonwealth country with Queen Elizabeth as technically the head of state
And to this day Barbados has more british nationals living in it than any other country in the Caribbean, and the third in the Americas after the U.S. and Canada
In terms of their best friend they more or less might consider Trinidad and Tobago, granted in the past, they did have territorial disputes over maritime boundaries
and there was that one song that Mac Fingal wrote that kind of pissed off Barbadians when he said that Barbados was a part of Trinidad and Tobago
But all of that aside, they get along amazingly well and love to see eachother whenever the opportunity comes for them to visit
The two countries also signed an agreement to construct a 177 mile long liquid natural gas pipeline between the two to share resources and energy
In conclusion, Barbados is *scratch* no I can't even do this, Rihanna, why didn't you answer my tweets?! I tweeted you like 4 times! Come on! You had this opportunity!
Stay tuned, Belarus is coming up next!
*Outro Music*