The island - discovered by Christopher COLUMBUS in 1494 - was settled by the Spanish early in the 16th century. The native Taino Indians, who had inhabited Jamaica for centuries, were gradually exterminated and replaced by African slaves. England seized the island in 1655 and established a plantation economy based on sugar, cocoa, and coffee. The abolition of slavery in 1834 freed a quarter million slaves, many of whom became small farmers. Jamaica gradually obtained increasing independence from Britain, and in 1958 it joined other British Caribbean colonies in forming the Federation of the West Indies. Jamaica gained full independence when it withdrew from the Federation in 1962. Deteriorating economic conditions during the 1970s led to recurrent violence as rival gangs affiliated with the major political parties evolved into powerful organized crime networks involved in international drug smuggling and money laundering. Violent crime, drug trafficking, and poverty pose significant challenges to the government today. Nonetheless, many rural and resort areas remain relatively safe and contribute substantially to the economy.

Caribbean, island in the Caribbean Sea, south of Cuba
18 15 N, 77 30 W
Central America and the Caribbean
total: 10,991 sq km ; land: 10,831 sq km ; water: 160 sq km
slightly smaller than Connecticut
0 km
1,022 km
measured from claimed archipelagic straight baselines ; territorial sea: 12 nm ; contiguous zone: 24 nm ; exclusive economic zone: 200 nm ; continental shelf: 200 nm or to edge of the continental margin
tropical; hot, humid; temperate interior
mostly mountains, with narrow, discontinuous coastal plain
lowest point: Caribbean Sea 0 m ; highest point: Blue Mountain Peak 2,256 m
bauxite, gypsum, limestone
arable land: 15.83% ; permanent crops: 10.01% ; other: 74.16% (2005)
250 sq km (2002)
9.4 cu km (2000)
Total: 0.41 cu km/yr (34%/17%/49%) ; Per capita: 155 cu m/yr (2000)
hurricanes (especially July to November)
heavy rates of deforestation; coastal waters polluted by industrial waste, sewage, and oil spills; damage to coral reefs; air pollution in Kingston results from vehicle emissions
party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Marine Life Conservation, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Wetlands ; signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements
strategic location between Cayman Trench and Jamaica Channel, the main sea lanes for the Panama Canal
2,780,132 (July 2007 est.)
0-14 years: 32.5% (male 459,968/female 444,963) ; 15-64 years: 60.1% (male 822,486/female 848,310) ; 65 years and over: 7.4% (male 91,856/female 112,549) (2007 est.)
total: 23.2 years ; male: 22.6 years ; female: 23.7 years (2007 est.)
0.777% (2007 est.)
20.44 births/1,000 population (2007 est.)
6.59 deaths/1,000 population (2007 est.)
-6.07 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2007 est.)
at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female ; under 15 years: 1.034 male(s)/female ; 15-64 years: 0.97 male(s)/female ; 65 years and over: 0.816 male(s)/female ; total population: 0.978 male(s)/female (2007 est.)
total: 15.73 deaths/1,000 live births ; male: 16.4 deaths/1,000 live births ; female: 15.01 deaths/1,000 live births (2007 est.)
total population: 73.12 years ; male: 71.43 years ; female: 74.9 years (2007 est.)
2.36 children born/woman (2007 est.)
1.2% (2003 est.)
22,000 (2003 est.)
900 (2003 est.)
noun: Jamaican(s) ; adjective: Jamaican
black 91.2%, mixed 6.2%, other or unknown 2.6% (2001 census)
Protestant 62.5% (Seventh-Day Adventist 10.8%, Pentecostal 9.5%, Other Church of God 8.3%, Baptist 7.2%, New Testament Church of God 6.3%, Church of God in Jamaica 4.8%, Church of God of Prophecy 4.3%, Anglican 3.6%, other Christian 7.7%), Roman Catholic 2.6%, other or unspecified 14.2%, none 20.9%, (2001 census)
English, English patois
definition: age 15 and over has ever attended school ; total population: 87.9% ; male: 84.1% ; female: 91.6% (2003 est.)


conventional long form: none ; conventional short form: Jamaica
constitutional parliamentary democracy
name: Kingston ; geographic coordinates: 18 00 N, 76 48 W ; time difference: UTC-5 (same time as Washington, DC during Standard Time)
14 parishes; Clarendon, Hanover, Kingston, Manchester, Portland, Saint Andrew, Saint Ann, Saint Catherine, Saint Elizabeth, Saint James, Saint Mary, Saint Thomas, Trelawny, Westmoreland ; note: for local government purposes, Kingston and Saint Andrew were amalgamated in 1923 into the present single corporate body known as the Kingston and Saint Andrew Corporation

6 August 1962 (from UK)
Independence Day, 6 August (1962)
6 August 1962
based on English common law; has not accepted compulsory ICJ jurisdiction
18 years of age; universal
chief of state: Queen ELIZABETH II (since 6 February 1952); represented by Governor General Kenneth O. HALL (since 15 February 2006) ; head of government: Prime Minister Bruce GOLDING (since 11 September 2007) ; cabinet: Cabinet appointed by the governor general on the advice of the prime minister ; elections: none; the monarch is hereditary; governor general appointed by the monarch on the recommendation of the prime minister; following legislative elections, the leader of the majority party or the leader of the majority coalition in the House of Representatives is appointed prime minister by the governor general; the deputy prime minister is recommended by the prime minister
bicameral Parliament consists of the Senate (a 21-member body appointed by the governor general on the recommendations of the prime minister and the leader of the opposition; ruling party is allocated 13 seats, and the opposition is allocated 8 seats) and the House of Representatives (60 seats; members are elected by popular vote to serve five-year terms) ; elections: last held 3 September 2007 (next to be held no later than October 2012) ; election results: percent of vote by party - JLP 50.1%, PNP 49.8%; seats by party - JLP 33, PNP 27
Supreme Court (judges appointed by the governor general on the advice of the prime minister); Court of Appeal
Jamaica Labor Party or JLP [Bruce GOLDING]; People's National Party or PNP [Portia SIMPSON-MILLER]; National Democratic Movement or NDM [Michael WILLIAMS]
New Beginnings Movement or NBM; Rastafarians (black religious/racial cultists, pan-Africanists)
ACP, C, Caricom, CDB, FAO, G-15, G-77, IADB, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICCt (signatory), ICRM, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, IHO, ILO, IMF, IMO, Interpol, IOC, IOM, ISO, ITSO, ITU, LAES, MIGA, NAM, OAS, OPANAL, OPCW, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UNWTO, UPU, WCO, WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WTO
diagonal yellow cross divides the flag into four triangles - green (top and bottom) and black (hoist side and outer side)
chief of mission: Ambassador Gordon SHIRLEY ; chancery: 1520 New Hampshire Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20036 ; telephone: [1] (202) 452-0660 ; FAX: [1] (202) 452-0081 ; consulate(s) general: Miami, New York
chief of mission: Ambassador Brenda LaGrange JOHNSON ; embassy: 142 Old Hope Road, Kingston 6 ; mailing address: P.O. Box 541, Kingston 5 ; telephone: [1] (876) 702-6000 ; FAX: [1] (876) 702-6348





The Jamaican economy is heavily dependent on services, which now account for more than 60% of GDP. The country continues to derive most of its foreign exchange from tourism, remittances, and bauxite/alumina. Remittances account for nearly 20% of GDP and are equivalent to tourism revenues. Jamaica's economy, already saddled with a record of sluggish growth, will suffer an economic setback from damages caused by Hurricane Dean in August 2007. The economy faces serious long-term problems: high but declining interest rates, increased foreign competition, exchange rate instability, a sizable merchandise trade deficit, large-scale unemployment and underemployment, and a debt-to-GDP ratio of 135%. Jamaica's onerous debt burden - the fourth highest per capita - is the result of government bailouts to ailing sectors of the economy, most notably the financial sector in the mid-to-late 1990s. Inflation also has declined, standing at about 7% at the end of 2007. High unemployment exacerbates the serious crime problem, including gang violence that is fueled by the drug trade. The GOLDING administration faces the difficult prospect of having to achieve fiscal discipline in order to maintain debt payments while simultaneously attacking a serious and growing crime problem that is hampering economic growth.
$13.47 billion (2007 est.)
$8.905 billion (2007 est.)
1.5% (2007 est.)
$4,800 (2007 est.)
agriculture: 5% ; industry: 34% ; services: 61% (2007 est.)
1.255 million (2007 est.)
agriculture: 17% ; industry: 19% ; services: 64% (2006)
10.2% (2007 est.)
14.8% (2003 est.)
lowest 10%: 2.1% ; highest 10%: 35.8% (2004)
45.5 (2004)
7.1% (2007 est.)
34.1% of GDP (2007 est.)
revenues: $3.441 billion ; expenditures: $3.905 billion (2007 est.)
134.3% of GDP (2007 est.)
sugarcane, bananas, coffee, citrus, yams, ackees, vegetables; poultry, goats, milk; crustaceans, mollusks
tourism, bauxite/alumina, agro processing, light manufactures, rum, cement, metal, paper, chemical products, telecommunications
2% (2007 est.)
6.985 billion kWh (2005)
fossil fuel: 96.8% ; hydro: 1.8% ; nuclear: 0% ; other: 1.4% (2001)
6.131 billion kWh (2005)
0 kWh (2005)
0 kWh (2005)
0 bbl/day (2005 est.)
72,000 bbl/day (2005 est.)
1,531 bbl/day (2004)
71,420 bbl/day (2004)
0 bbl (1 January 2006 est.)
0 cu m (2005 est.)
0 cu m (2005 est.)
0 cu m (2005 est.)
0 cu m (2005)
0 cu m (1 January 2006 est.)
-$1.573 billion (2007 est.)
$2.229 billion f.o.b. (2007 est.)
alumina, bauxite, sugar, bananas, rum, coffee, yams, beverages, chemicals, wearing apparel, mineral fuels
US 30.2%, Canada 15.6%, China 15.2%, UK 10.3%, Netherlands 7%, Norway 4.6% (2006)
$5.709 billion f.o.b. (2007 est.)
US 39.3%, Trinidad and Tobago 13.6%, Venezuela 9.5% (2006)

$1.95 billion (31 December 2007 est.)
$7.138 billion (31 December 2007 est.)


$12.28 billion (2006)
Jamaican dollar (JMD)
JMD
Jamaican dollars per US dollar - 69.034 (2007), 65.768 (2006), 62.51 (2005), 61.197 (2004), 57.741 (2003)
1 April - 31 March
$35.74 million (2005)
319,000 (2005)
2.804 million (2005)
general assessment: fully automatic domestic telephone network ; domestic: the 1999 agreement to open the market for telecommunications services resulted in rapid growth in mobile-cellular telephone usage; mobile-cellular teledensity now exceeds 100 per 100 persons; the number of fixed-lines in use has been declining ; international: country code - 1-876; the Fibralink submarine cable network provides enhanced delivery of business and broadband traffic and is linked to the Americas Region Caribbean Ring System (ARCOS-1) submarine cable in the Dominican Republic; the link to ARCOS-1 provides seamless connectivity to US, parts of the Caribbean, Central America, and South America; satellite earth stations - 2 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean)
AM 10, FM 13, shortwave 0 (1998)
1.215 million (1997)
7 (1997)
460,000 (1997)
.jm
1,213 (2007)
21 (2000)
1.232 million (2005)

34 (2007)
total: 11 ; 2,438 to 3,047 m: 2 ; 914 to 1,523 m: 4 ; under 914 m: 5 (2007)
total: 23 ; 914 to 1,523 m: 2 ; under 914 m: 21 (2007)



total: 20,996 km ; paved: 15,386 km (includes 33 km of expressways) ; unpaved: 5,610 km (2004)

total: 13 ships (1000 GRT or over) 161,700 GRT/241,663 DWT ; by type: bulk carrier 6, cargo 2, carrier 1, petroleum tanker 1, roll on/roll off 3 ; foreign-owned: 12 (Denmark 1, Germany 1, Greece 8, Latvia 2) ; registered in other countries: 1 (Panama 1) (2007)
Kingston, Port Esquivel, Port Kaiser, Port Rhoades, Rocky Point

Jamaica Defense Force: Ground Forces, Coast Guard, Air Wing (2007)
18 years of age for voluntary military service; younger recruits may be conscripted with parental consent (2001)
males age 18-49: 592,018 ; females age 18-49: 616,500 (2005 est.)
males age 18-49: 478,761 ; females age 18-49: 504,541 (2005 est.)
males age 18-49: 27,923 ; females age 18-49: 27,889 (2005 est.)
0.6% (2006 est.)

none

transshipment point for cocaine from South America to North America and Europe; illicit cultivation and consumption of cannabis; government has an active manual cannabis eradication program; corruption is a major concern; substantial money-laundering activity; Colombian narcotics traffickers favor Jamaica for illicit financial transactions

