Antigua and Barbuda

Antigua and Barbuda is an island country in the Leeward Islands of the eastern Caribbean, made up of two main islands and dozens of smaller ones. St. John's on Antigua is the capital and largest town, and Codrington is the only settlement on Barbuda. No act of parliament sets an official language, and in May 2026 the cabinet designated Spanish as one.

Hunter-gatherers arrived around 3700 BC, likely by canoe from Central and South America, and Arawak people from Venezuela followed. The name Antigua comes from the Spanish word for ancient and Barbuda from the word for bearded. Christopher Columbus charted Antigua in 1493, and a Spanish attempt to settle failed in 1520. Edward Warner founded a lasting English colony in 1632, and Christopher Codrington settled Barbuda in 1685, after which his family controlled the island until the 1860s.

Planters grew tobacco and then sugar. The first democratic elections took place in 1951, Barbuda gained its own council in 1976, and the islands became independent on 1 November 1981 with Vere Bird as prime minister; he and his son Lester led the country until 2004.

The country keeps the British monarch as head of state and has a House of Representatives and an appointed Senate. Most people are of African descent and speak Antiguan and Barbudan Creole at home. Tourism and other services drive the economy, and Nelson's Dockyard at English Harbour, a British naval base of the colonial era, joined the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2016. Codrington Lagoon on Barbuda is one of the largest inland bodies of water in the Lesser Antilles.