Trinidad and Tobago: A Twin-Island Nation's History, Economy, and Culture

Key facts

• Trinidad and Tobago has a population of about 1.36 million as of 2023.
• Trinidad covers about 1,850 square miles and is 7 miles from Venezuela; Tobago spans about 115 square miles and is 20 miles from Trinidad.
• The Archaic or Ortoiroid people arrived from Venezuela around 4000 BC and lived at sites including Banwari Trace until about 200 BC.
• Christopher Columbus first set foot on Trinidad in 1498 and declared it a Spanish colony; Spain governed until 1797.
• French settlement began in 1777 after Philippe Rose Roume de St Laurent proposed moving French planters and their African slaves from several Caribbean islands.
• Britain took control of Tobago after the Second Treaty of Paris in 1814; the islands merged in 1889, gained independence in 1962, and became a republic in 1976.
• Oil drilling started in the early 1900s on Trinidad and later expanded offshore; oil production has dropped sharply since its late-1970s peak.
• The population is about 34 percent Afro-Trinidadian, 35 percent Indo-Trinidadian, and nearly 30 percent mixed-heritage, with small Syrian and Chinese communities.