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Below is the article summary. For the full article, see Saint Lucia.
Saint Lucia , Island country, Windward Islands, in the eastern Caribbean Sea. Area: 238 sq mi (616 sq km). Population: (2024 est.) 186,500. Capital: Castries. Most of the population is of African descent. Languages: English (official), French patois. Religions: Christianity (Roman Catholic, Protestant); also Rastafarianism. Currency: Eastern Caribbean dollar. Saint Lucia is of volcanic origin; within the Qualibou Caldera is Sulphur Springs, which continues to emit steam and gases and is a prime tourist attraction. Wooded mountains run north-south, culminating in Mount Gimie (3,145 ft [958.6 m]). The economy is based on agriculture and tourism. Saint Lucia is a constitutional monarchy with a parliament of two legislative houses; its head of state is the British monarch, represented by the governor-general, and the head of government is the prime minister. Caribs replaced early Arawak inhabitants c. 800–1300. Settled by the French in 1650, Saint Lucia was ceded to Great Britain in 1814 and became one of the Windward Islands in 1871. It became fully independent in 1979.
Commonwealth, a free association of sovereign states comprising the United Kingdom and a number of its former dependencies who have chosen to maintain ties of friendship and practical cooperation and who acknowledge the British monarch as symbolic head of their association. The Commonwealth was an
Caribbean Sea, suboceanic basin of the western Atlantic Ocean, lying between latitudes 9° and 22° N and longitudes 89° and 60° W. It is approximately 1,063,000 square miles (2,753,000 square km) in extent. To the south it is bounded by the coasts of Venezuela, Colombia, and Panama; to the west by
West Indies, crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles (3,200 km) long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north. From the peninsula of Florida on the mainland of the United States, the islands stretch
Atlantic Ocean, body of salt water covering approximately one-fifth of Earth’s surface and separating the continents of Europe and Africa to the east from those of North and South America to the west. The ocean’s name, derived from Greek mythology, means the “Sea of Atlas.” It is second in size to
