47 Fun Facts About Saint Lucia

What is the capital and largest city of Saint Lucia?

Castries grew up around a fine natural harbour on the north-west coast, a prize that helps explain why Britain and France contested the island for so long.

Fought over by Britain and France, Saint Lucia is nicknamed which woman of the West Indies?

Helen of the West Indies likens Saint Lucia to Helen of Troy, the beauty two powers went to war over: the island changed hands 14 times before France ceded it for good in 1814.

In legend, why is Saint Lucia named after Saint Lucy?

Legend says French sailors were shipwrecked on her feast day, 13 December, and named the island for her; Spanish records from the early 1500s already call it Sancta Lucia, so the tale may be only that.

The Arawak name for Saint Lucia, Louanalao, meant what?

Louanalao, the Arawak name, meant 'Island of the Iguanas', after the large lizards the Arawaks found when they settled the island around 200 AD.

The one-legged French pirate François le Clerc, based on Pigeon Island in the 1550s, was nicknamed what?

Jambe de Bois means 'wooden leg': from his camp there, le Clerc attacked the Spanish ships that sailed past.

Saint Lucia's twin peaks near Soufriere are what kind of geological feature?

Volcanic plugs is the usual description of the twin peaks: cores of hardened lava left standing as the softer rock around them wore away; UNESCO listed them as a World Heritage Site in 2004.

Which 1967 musical film was partly shot at Saint Lucia's Marigot Bay?

Doctor Dolittle (1967), starring Rex Harrison, shot its shipwreck and Great Pink Sea Snail scenes in Marigot Bay, where tropical storms and insects put an already troubled production further behind schedule.

What is the name of Saint Lucia's self-styled 'drive-in volcano' near Soufriere?

Sulphur Springs, in the Qualibou caldera near Soufriere, lets visitors drive right up to steaming fumaroles and bubbling mud pools, hence the 'drive-in volcano' tag.

What is the highest point on Saint Lucia?

Mount Gimie, a forested peak in the island's interior, is the highest point, topping the far more famous twin peaks on the coast near Soufriere by well over 100 metres.

Saint Lucia's two Nobel laureates, born fifteen years apart, share which coincidence?

The same birthday, 23 January, links Arthur Lewis (born 1915) and Derek Walcott (born 1930), so Saint Lucia marks the date as Nobel Laureate Day.

Sir Arthur Lewis was the first Black winner of which Nobel Prize?

Economic Sciences was not Arthur Lewis's first choice: he wanted to be an engineer, but saw no point because neither the government nor white firms would hire a Black engineer; he later shared the prize with Theodore Schultz.

Derek Walcott's 1990 epic poem about Saint Lucian fishermen is titled what?

Omeros reimagines the Trojan War as a feud between the Saint Lucian fishermen Achille and Hector, borrowing its heroes from Homer's Iliad; Walcott won the Nobel Prize in Literature two years after it appeared.

Julien Alfred won Saint Lucia's first-ever Olympic medal in 2024 in which event?

Julien Alfred won the women's 100 metres in 10.72 seconds on a rain-soaked Paris track, beating world champion Sha'Carri Richardson to give Saint Lucia its first Olympic medal.

Which Saint Lucian cricketer captained the West Indies to T20 World Cup titles in 2012 and 2016?

Daren Sammy, the first Saint Lucian to play international cricket, lifted the World T20 trophy as captain in 2012 and 2016; after the second win the national ground at Beausejour was renamed in his honour.

What do the golden and black triangles on Saint Lucia's flag represent?

The Pitons, the twin peaks rising from the sea near Soufriere, are the flag's triangles; the design was kept at independence with only its shade of blue and the triangles' proportions adjusted.

Derek Walcott's 1967 'Dream on Monkey Mountain' is what kind of work?

A stage play, it won an Obie Award in 1971 after the Negro Ensemble Company staged it off-Broadway; Walcott had founded the Trinidad Theatre Workshop in 1959 and wrote plays throughout his career as a poet.

Besides English, what is the widely spoken vernacular language of Saint Lucia called?

Kweyol, known locally as Patwa, is a French-based creole that outlasted French rule: English is the only official language, yet most Saint Lucians speak Kweyol, and Jounen Kwéyòl celebrates it each October.

What is the national dish of Saint Lucia?

Green figs and saltfish pairs boiled unripe 'figs' with salted fish, a dish rooted in the plantation era, when enslaved workers relied on saltfish for protein.

Which crop was once the backbone of Saint Lucia's economy before tourism took over?

Bananas sustained the island's exports, especially after sugar-cane production ended in 1964, until competition from Latin American fruit shrank the trade and tourism took over.

Which Saint Lucian town is known for its Friday-night 'jump-up' street party?

Gros Islet, once a quiet fishing village near the island's northern tip, fills its streets every Friday night for the 'jump-up', a street party that has become a major tourist draw.

Which official represents Saint Lucia's head of state, the British monarch?

Governor-General is the title: Saint Lucia remained a Commonwealth realm at independence, so the monarch is still head of state and a governor-general stands in, while the prime minister runs the government.

Saint Lucia's 19th-century Civil Code was modelled on that of which place?

Quebec supplied the model: a chief justice who had practised law there adapted the English version of its civil code for the island, whose law still blends French-derived civil law with English common law.

Which admiral fortified Pigeon Island to watch the French fleet and gave his name to the bay beside it?

George Rodney fortified Pigeon Island as a lookout over the French base at Fort Royal; in April 1782 he sailed from there to beat de Grasse at the Battle of the Saintes, and the anchorage now bears his name.

Pigeon Island stopped being an island in the early 1970s when what happened?

A causeway joined it to the mainland, built from earth dug out to create the neighbouring marina; the former island later became a national park protecting the ruins of its 18th-century fort.

In March 1942, what slipped into the harbour of Saint Lucia's capital and attacked two Allied ships?

A German U-boat, U-161, crept into the harbour at night and torpedoed the Canadian liner Lady Nelson and the British steamer Umtata at the dockside; the liner was later raised and rebuilt as a hospital ship.

Which hurricane devastated Saint Lucia's infrastructure in August 1980?

Hurricane Allen passed just south of Saint Lucia on 4 August 1980 while strengthening towards Category 5, devastating the island's export crop and cutting communications.

Saint Lucia's international airport in the south is named what?

Hewanorra International, at Vieux Fort on the southern tip, takes its name from the island's old Carib name; it began as a US air base in the Second World War and handles the long-haul jets the northern airfield cannot.

Which tree, whose hard-shelled fruit is made into household utensils, is Saint Lucia's national tree?

Calabash is the national tree: once the pulp is scooped out, its hard round shell serves as bowls, cups and water containers. Despite the name, it is unrelated to the calabash gourd, which grows on a vine.

Which two neighbouring islands lie closest to Saint Lucia, to the north and south?

Martinique lies just to the north and Saint Vincent just to the south, each within about 40 km; Martinique is an overseas department of France, so Saint Lucia's nearest northern neighbour is French soil.

Which endemic parrot, Amazona versicolor, is Saint Lucia's national bird?

The Jacquot amazon, as the Saint Lucia parrot is called locally, had dwindled to little more than a hundred birds in the 1970s before an island-wide education campaign and protection helped numbers recover.

Saint Lucia's rival flower societies, celebrating on 30 August and 17 October, are named after what?

The rose and the marguerite give their names to La Rose and La Marguerite, rival societies that each crown a king and queen and parade a mock court of princes, judges, soldiers and nurses.

Which internationally known music event does Saint Lucia hold each May?

A jazz festival: the Saint Lucia Jazz Festival was launched in the early 1990s to draw visitors in May, traditionally a quiet month for tourism, and its main venue is Pigeon Island.

Which transoceanic sailing event, starting in the Canary Islands, finishes in Saint Lucia?

The Atlantic Rally for Cruisers sends more than 200 yachts from Las Palmas in Gran Canaria each November; it is less a race than a mass crossing, run so cruising crews and families can make the passage in company.

The British fleet that won the Battle of the Saintes sailed from Saint Lucia during which wider conflict?

The American Revolution was still being fought when a British fleet left its Saint Lucian anchorage in April 1782 and beat the French off Dominica, ending French and Spanish plans for a joint invasion in the Caribbean.

Under which 1814 agreement did Britain finally secure Saint Lucia?

The 1814 Treaty of Paris, signed after Napoleon's first abdication, ceded Saint Lucia to Britain for good; the Treaty of Amiens had handed it back to France in 1802.

The West Indies Federation, which Saint Lucia joined in 1958, unravelled after which member's referendum to leave?

Jamaica voted to leave in a 1961 referendum; Trinidad's Eric Williams then remarked that one from ten leaves nought and pulled out too, and the federation collapsed in 1962.

Which Saint Lucian prime minister led the country to independence?

John Compton took Saint Lucia to independence in February, lost power at the polls a few months later, returned in 1982 to govern until 1996, and won office a last time in 2006, a year before his death.

Saint Lucia belongs to which island group of the Lesser Antilles?

Saint Lucia is one of the Windward Islands, the southern arc of the Lesser Antilles, named in the age of sail for lying to windward, the side the trade winds blow from, of the Leeward Islands to the north.

Saint Lucia's currency is what?

The East Caribbean dollar is shared by eight territories and issued from Basseterre in Saint Kitts; once tied to sterling, it switched to a US-dollar peg in 1976 and has held at EC$2.70 ever since.

Saint Lucia backed the 1983 US-led invasion of which Caribbean island?

Grenada was invaded in October 1983 after its prime minister Maurice Bishop was killed in a coup; Saint Lucia backed the intervention and sent a contingent to the Caribbean peacekeeping force that accompanied the American troops.

The Saint Lucia racer, now confined to one tiny offshore islet, is often called the world's rarest what?

Snake is the answer: the harmless Saint Lucia racer was once declared extinct, turned up again in 1973, and now survives only on mongoose-free Maria Major, where perhaps twenty remain.

Who became Saint Lucia's prime minister after the July 2021 election?

Philip J. Pierre led the Saint Lucia Labour Party to 13 seats against two for Allen Chastanet's United Workers Party in July 2021, turning the government out after a single term.

In 1940 Britain let the United States build bases on Saint Lucia in exchange for fifty ageing what?

Destroyers were the price: the 1940 deal traded fifty old US Navy ships for 99-year base leases, and on Saint Lucia it produced an army airfield in the south and a naval air station in the north.

After abolition in 1834, freed people on Saint Lucia still owed former masters years of unpaid labour under what system?

Apprenticeship kept the newly freed working most of the week unpaid for their old masters; it was meant to last up to six years but ended early, and full freedom came on 1 August 1838.

Which Saint Lucian dance music grew out of artists singing over Angolan kuduro beats?

Dennery Segment, first known as Lucian kuduro, takes its name from the east-coast town where artists began singing over kuduro loops before building rhythms of their own.

Saint Lucia's 1951 election was the first under which reform?

Universal adult suffrage arrived in 1951; at the first elections, in 1925, only three members of the Legislative Council were elected, and officials and appointees filled the other seats.

The 'anse' in Saint Lucian place names such as Anse la Raye is a French word for what?

A small bay is an anse in French, a leftover of French settlement; Anse la Raye is usually read as the bay of the rays, after the rays found in its waters.