Jamaica

Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea spanning 10,991 square kilometers, the third-largest island in the Greater Antilles after Cuba and Hispaniola, lying about 145 kilometers south of Cuba, 191 kilometers west of Hispaniola and 215 kilometers southeast of the Cayman Islands. Kingston is its capital and largest city, and with a population of about 2.8 million Jamaica is the third-most populous Anglophone country in the Americas and the fourth-most populous in the Caribbean; the population is predominantly of Sub-Saharan African descent, with mixed-race, Indian, White and Chinese minorities. Indigenous Ciboney people inhabited the island until Spain conquered it following Columbus's 1494 arrival, and Spanish rule lasted until England seized the island in 1655; under British colonial rule Jamaica developed a plantation economy dependent on African slavery, which Britain abolished in 1838, and the island gradually gained self-government before achieving full independence on 6 August 1962. Jamaica remains a parliamentary constitutional monarchy and Commonwealth realm, with King Charles III as head of state represented locally by a governor-general, Prime Minister Andrew Holness heading the government since March 2016, and a bicameral Parliament of an appointed Senate and an elected House of Representatives. An upper-middle-income country whose economy depends heavily on tourism, drawing about 4.3 million visitors a year, Jamaica also carries outsized global cultural influence as the birthplace of the Rastafari religion and of reggae and its related genres dub, ska and dancehall, and as a major force in international cricket and sprinting.