CURACAO
Population

Cities in CURACAO

Jan thiel baai

Piscadera bay

Willemstad

Population

Curacao playing children_{Photo: Public domain}

The Dutch deported the Spaniards and most Indians in the 17th century. At the beginning of the 19th century, the last Indians had disappeared. Twenty years after the Dutch, Portuguese (Sephardic) Jews settled in Curaçao. This happened after the fall of the Dutch colony in Brazil in 1654. Another group that settled on the island after the abolition of slavery were descendants of African slaves. These three culturally very different population groups maintained a certain population pattern until the arrival of the refinery in the early 20th century. The establishment of the Shell refinery in the twenties of this century led to a population explosion due to immigration from the surrounding countries and islands, the Netherlands, Portugal and the Middle East. The population grew from 37,000 in 1915 to 91,000 in 1947. Of these, 25,000 were of non-Antillean descent. According to the 1992 census, Curaçao has 144,000 inhabitants. Including illegal residents, there are probably around 160,000 inhabitants. Eighty-five percent of them are of Dutch Antillean descent. Ten percent consists of Dutch and the rest consists of a multitude of nationalities, most of which are Portuguese, French and English, from other Caribbean islands. In 2017 Curacao had 149,648 inhabitants.

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Sources

Bakker, J. / Nederlandse Antillen en Aruba
Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen

Encarta Encyclopedie

Erven Dorens, P. van / Curaçao
Bos & Co

Helm, R. van der / De Curaçao reisgids
Elmar

CIA - World Factbook

BBC - Country Profiles

Last updated March 2024
Copyright: Team The World of Info