49 Fun Facts About Saint Kitts and Nevis

Saint Kitts and Nevis holds what distinction among the sovereign states of the Western Hemisphere?

Smallest in both area and population of any country in the Americas, it has seen emigration so heavy that its population has stayed roughly level for decades.

What is the capital of Saint Kitts and Nevis?

Basseterre was founded by the French in 1627, which is why the capital of a former British colony carries a French name; most of the town had to be rebuilt after a great fire in 1867.

The shallow channel separating Saint Kitts from Nevis is called what?

The Narrows is only about 3 km wide but has claimed many ships: in 1970 the overloaded ferry Christena sank there on its way to Nevis, and more than 200 people died.

Which British dependency broke away from its union with Saint Kitts and Nevis in 1967?

Anguilla ejected the Saint Kitts police in May 1967 and set up its own council; Britain took direct control in 1971 and formally severed the union in 1980.

Which nickname belongs to Saint Kitts?

Mother Colony of the West Indies fits because the first British and French colonies in the Caribbean both began on Saint Kitts in the 1620s, and settlers from each then fanned out to claim neighbouring islands.

Who represents the monarch in independent Saint Kitts and Nevis?

A governor-general acts for the monarch because Saint Kitts and Nevis stayed a Commonwealth realm at independence in 1983, keeping the British sovereign as head of state instead of becoming a republic.

Oualie, the Kalinago name for Nevis, is usually translated as what?

Land of beautiful waters is how the Kalinago name is usually rendered; it survives at Oualie Beach, where swimmers set off each year to race across the channel to Saint Kitts.

The name 'Saint Kitts' comes from a 17th-century nickname for which saint's name?

Kit was a common short form of Christopher, so St Christopher's Island became St Kitt's; the constitution still uses both names.

The name Nevis is usually traced to a Spanish phrase meaning what?

Our Lady of the Snows, 'Nuestra Señora de las Nieves' in Spanish, is thought to have been suggested by the white cloud that usually caps the island's peak; nobody knows for certain who chose it.

Who led the first permanent European settlers to Saint Kitts in the 1620s?

Thomas Warner made terms with the Kalinago chief Tegremante and settled at Old Road on the west coast; he went on to govern the colony until his death in 1649.

The 1626 massacre of the Kalinago by the combined European settlers gave its name to which site?

Bloody Point is where the island's two rival colonies joined forces in 1626 to attack the Kalinago, claiming to forestall a plot against them; the survivors were later driven off the island.

France gave up its share of Saint Kitts to Britain under which 1713 agreement?

The Treaty of Utrecht ended the War of the Spanish Succession and handed Britain the whole of Saint Kitts, which the two powers had divided between them for most of a century.

Which town is the capital of the island of Nevis?

Charlestown's older buildings pair a stone ground floor with a timber upper storey, a style shaped by the island's earthquakes: the lighter wood is less likely to collapse in a tremor.

Which American Founding Father was born on Nevis in 1755 or 1757?

Alexander Hamilton was put to work as a merchants' clerk at about 11; friends who saw his talent later sent him north to be educated, and he entered King's College in New York in 1773.

Which fortress on Saint Kitts, now a World Heritage Site, fell to French besiegers in 1782?

Brimstone Hill Fortress, designed by British engineers and built by enslaved labourers, fell when its outnumbered garrison gave up after a month-long siege; a peace treaty handed it back the next year.

When slavery ended in 1834, freed people on Saint Kitts had to keep working for former owners under which system?

Apprenticeship was meant to tie field workers to their old estates for six years of largely unpaid labour, but it was scrapped early, in 1838, leaving them fully free.

Nevis voted in 1998 on which change, falling short of the two-thirds needed?

Seceding from Saint Kitts is a right the 1983 constitution gives Nevis alone; 62 percent voted yes, a few points short, so the island stayed in the federation with its own premier and assembly.

Which labour leader, Premier of the islands from 1967 to 1978, gives his name to the main airport on Saint Kitts?

Robert Llewellyn Bradshaw rose through the sugar workers' union to lead the Labour Party, and as Premier had the government buy the sugar lands and the central factory; he died in office in 1978.

Who became the first prime minister of independent Saint Kitts and Nevis in 1983?

Kennedy Simmonds, Premier since 1980, took the islands into independence and stayed in power through three more elections before Labour swept his party from office in 1995.

What ended centuries of sugar-growing on Saint Kitts in 2005?

A state shutdown: the government closed the nationalised industry after years of running it at a loss; tourism took over as the main earner, and the old cane railway now carries sightseers.

Which 1998 hurricane caused hundreds of millions of dollars of damage in Saint Kitts and Nevis?

Georges hit in late September 1998, damaging most of the homes on Saint Kitts and wrecking much of the sugar crop.

What is the highest peak in Saint Kitts and Nevis, rising to about 1,150 m?

Mount Liamuiga is a dormant volcano with a lake in its forested crater; its name is the one the Kalinago gave the whole island, restored to the peak in modern times.

The volcano that forms the highest peak on Saint Kitts was long known by which name?

Mount Misery was the colonial-era name; the peak now carries the name the Kalinago gave the whole island before Europeans arrived.

What is the national bird of Saint Kitts and Nevis?

The brown pelican hunts by diving bill-first into the sea from the air, and a pair of them hold up the shield on the national coat of arms.

Which two colours form the upper and lower triangles of the flag of Saint Kitts and Nevis?

Green and red stand for the islands' fertile land and the struggle from slavery through colonialism to independence; the yellow-edged black band between them carries two white stars.

Who designed the flag of Saint Kitts and Nevis, chosen from 258 entries in a national competition?

A local student, Edrice Lewis, won the contest months before independence in 1983; her design was approved by the Cabinet and sent to the College of Arms in London.

Saint Kitts and Nevis uses which currency, shared with five other independent states?

The East Caribbean dollar was launched in 1965 and has held the same peg, EC$2.70 to one US dollar, since 1976, so its rate has not moved in decades; the central bank that issues it sits on Saint Kitts.

Saint Kitts and Nevis's citizenship-by-investment programme, founded in 1984, is what?

The world's oldest such scheme sells citizenship for a payment into a state fund or an approved property purchase; such 'golden passports' are prized for visa-free travel and criticised as a money-laundering risk.

The St Kitts Scenic Railway carries sightseers around the island in what unusual kind of carriage?

Double-decker cars put riders on an open top deck above a lounge; the narrow-gauge line was laid from 1912 to haul sugar cane to the factory, and now lives on tourism.

Sprinter Kim Collins won which world title for Saint Kitts and Nevis in 2003?

The 100 metres crown came by a single hundredth of a second in Paris; thirteen years later, at 40, he ran 9.93 to become the first man that age to break ten seconds.

Kim Collins became the first athlete from Saint Kitts and Nevis to do what at Sydney in 2000?

Reach an Olympic final was a national first when Collins finished seventh in the Sydney sprint; he ran at five Games, and was sent home from London 2012 after a dispute with team officials.

The national football team of Saint Kitts and Nevis is nicknamed what?

The Sugar Boyz take their name from the crop that long dominated Saint Kitts; in 2023 they reached the CONCACAF Gold Cup for the first time, winning a penalty shoot-out to qualify.

Saint Kitts and Nevis was the smallest country to host matches in which tournament in 2007?

Cricket World Cup games came to Saint Kitts because the region's combined team, drawn from many Caribbean countries, was the host, and the 2007 matches were spread over eight venues.

Which Spice Girl was made a Nevis tourism ambassador in 2022?

Mel B was born in Leeds, but her father was born on Nevis and she has visited since childhood; accepting the role, she called the island her dad's home country and part of who she is.

Nevis's summer festival, running from late July into August, is called what?

Culturama began in 1974, when islanders feared their folk arts and customs were dying out; it is held around the Emancipation Day holiday at the start of August.

The Bath Hotel on Nevis, built in 1778, is billed as what?

The first hotel in the Caribbean, as Nevis bills it, was built by John Huggins beside hot springs fed by the island's volcano, and drew visitors from Europe to take the waters.

Which future British admiral married the widow Frances Nisbet on Nevis in 1787?

Horatio Nelson, then a young captain stationed in the Leeward Islands, married her at the Montpelier estate, where the future King William IV gave the bride away.

Which British singer-songwriter was born on Saint Kitts in 1950 and raised in Birmingham?

Joan Armatrading left the Caribbean as a child to join her parents in England; her self-titled 1976 album and its single 'Love and Affection' took her into the British charts.

The appointed members of the National Assembly of Saint Kitts and Nevis hold which title?

Senators here have no senate to sit in: the constitution provides for at least three, named on the advice of the prime minister and the opposition leader, and they share one chamber with the elected members.

The fourteen administrative divisions of Saint Kitts and Nevis are known by which name?

Parishes here mostly pair a saint with a place, and four saints, George, John, Paul and Thomas, each name a parish on both islands, so only the place tells them apart; nine lie on Saint Kitts and five on Nevis.

Most people in Saint Kitts and Nevis trace their ancestry mainly to which continent?

Africa is the ancestral home of more than 90 percent of the population, descendants of people enslaved to work the islands' plantations; mixed, European and Indian minorities make up most of the rest.

Which union did Saint Kitts and Nevis join in 1958?

West Indies Federation membership was brief: the union fell apart after Jamaica voted in a 1961 referendum to leave, and Saint Kitts and Nevis became a self-governing state in association with Britain in 1967.

The Saint Kitts and Nevis Defence Force works with police mainly against what?

Drug trafficking is the crime the force, only a few hundred strong, chiefly helps the police to fight; its soldiers are also sent out on relief work after natural disasters.

What are people from the island of Saint Kitts called?

Kittitians share the country with Nevisians from the smaller island, so the federation has two demonyms and no single everyday word for all its citizens.

Who became the fourth prime minister of Saint Kitts and Nevis after snap elections in August 2022?

Terrance Drew, a physician, led Labour back to power after the Team Unity coalition fell out with its own prime minister, who dissolved parliament rather than face a no-confidence vote.

Which tree, national flower of Saint Kitts and Nevis, is named after a French colonial official?

Poinciana takes its name from Phillippe de Poincy, who ran the French colony on Saint Kitts in the mid-1600s, though the flame-flowered tree, also called the flamboyant, is native to Madagascar.

Which doctor, by some accounts born on Nevis, patented an ice-making machine in Florida in 1851?

John Gorrie built his machine while trying to cool the rooms of fever patients in Apalachicola; accounts of his birthplace differ between Nevis and Charleston, South Carolina.

What is the only official language of Saint Kitts and Nevis?

English is the sole official language, a legacy of centuries of British rule, though an English-based creole is widely spoken in everyday life.

From St Kitts, the French went on to settle Martinique, Saint Barthélemy and which archipelago?

The British used the same base to colonise Antigua, Montserrat, Anguilla and Tortola.