POPULATION 303,611
BAPTIST 35.4 percent
ANGLICAN 15.2 percent
ROMAN CATHOLIC 13.5 percent
PENTECOSTAL 12.9 percent
METHODIST 4.3 percent
SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST 3.6 percent
NO RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION 2.9 percent
OTHER 12.2 percent

Country Overview

Introduction

The Commonwealth of The Bahamas, an archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean, lies north of Cuba and southeast of Florida. In 1492 C.E. Christopher Columbus made his historic landfall in The Bahamas. At that time the islands were inhabited by Native Americans whom anthropologists have variously identified as Lucayan, Taino Lucayan, and Arawak. With Columbus's arrival, Spain claimed the islands, but Spaniards never settled there. Within three decades of Iberian contact the Lucayan population had been taken from the islands and exterminated (as a result of harsh forced labor and European-borne diseases), and the islands remained uninhabited until 1648, when a group of English adventurers sailed from Bermuda to the island of Segatoo (now called Eleuthera).

Thereafter, the population of The Bahamas increased...