The Cayman Islands is a self-governing British Overseas Territory and the largest by population. The 264-square-kilometre (102-square-mile) territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, which are located south of Cuba and north-east of Honduras, between Jamaica and Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. The capital city is George Town on Grand Cayman, which is the most populous of the three islands.
The Cayman Islands is considered to be part of the geographic Western Caribbean zone as well as the Greater Antilles. The territory is a major offshore financial centre for international businesses and wealthy individuals, largely as a result of the state not charging taxes on any income earned or stored.
With a GDP per capita of $91,392, the Cayman Islands has the highest standard of living in the Caribbean, and one of the highest in the world. Immigrants from over 130 countries and territories reside in the Cayman Islands.
England took formal control of the Cayman Islands, along with Jamaica, as a result of the Treaty of Madrid of 1670. That same year saw an attack on a turtle fishing settlement on Little Cayman by the Spanish. Following several unsuccessful attempts at settlement in what had by then become a haven for pirates, a permanent English-speaking population in the islands dates from the 1730s. With settlement, after the first royal land grant by the Governor of Jamaica in 1734, came the introduction of slaves. Many were purchased and brought to the islands from Africa. That has resulted in the majority of native Caymanians being of African or English descent. The first census taken in the islands, in 1802, showed the population on Grand Cayman to be 933, with 545 of those inhabitants being slaves.Slavery was abolished in the Cayman Islands in 1833, following the passing of the Slavery Abolition Actby the British Parliament. At the time of abolition, there were over 950 slaves of African ancestry, owned by 116 families.
On 22 June 1863, the Cayman Islands was officially declared and administered as a dependency of the Crown Colony of Jamaica. The islands continued to be governed as part of the Colony of Jamaica until 1962, when they became a separate Crown colony, after Jamaica became an independent Commonwealth realm.
