Trinidad and Tobago
POPULATION 1,298,000
ROMAN CATHOLIC 29.4 percent
HINDU 23.8 percent
ANGLICAN 10.9 percent
MUSLIM 5.8 percent
PRESBYTERIAN 3.4 percent
OTHER 26.7 percent
Country Overview
Introduction
The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, located seven miles north of Venezuela, comprises two islands at the southernmost tip of the Caribbean archipelago. At 1,980 square miles, the country is about one and a half times the size of Rhode Island. Three mountain ranges cross Trinidad, the larger of the two islands, in an east-west orientation. Parts of both its east and west coasts are swampy.
In 1498 Christopher Columbus glimpsed three mountains on the Northern Range of the larger island. He claimed the island for Spain, naming it Trinidad after the Holy Trinity. Although little developed by Spain, Trinidad was given its first European identity by Spanish settlement. In 1793, at the invitation of the Spanish, French Catholic planters and their enslaved Africans set up sugar and cocoa plantations on the island. By thus developing it, Spain had hoped to stave off continuing encroachments by the British. In 1797, however, the British captured Trinidad, which was formally relinquished to them in 1802.
Roman Catholicism was the religion of the Spanish and the early French settlers.
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