Bermuda Travel Guide & Location Information

Bermuda (fully, The Bermuda Islands, alias The Somers Isles) is an overseas territory of the United Kingdom in the North Atlantic Ocean, situated around 600 miles (975 km) off the coast of the United States. Although commonly referred to in the singular, it consists of around 138 islands, of total area 58.8 square kilometres (27.7 sq. mi). Compiling a list of these islands is often complicated, as many have more than one name (as does the entire archipelago, which, in addition to its two official names, has historically been known as La Garza, Virgineola, and the Isle of Devils). Despite the limited land mass, there has also been a tendency for place names to be repeated (there are two Long Islands, for instance, and two Long Bays, and St. George's town is located on the island of the same name, within the parish also called St. George's). The largest island, Main Island (also called Bermuda, or Great Bermuda), is the location of the capital, the City of Hamilton (which is in Pembroke Parish, and is often confused with Hamilton Parish). Bermuda has a thriving economy, with a large financial sector and tourism industry.

Bermuda was discovered by the early 1500s, probably in 1503, according to some sources. It was certainly known by 1511, when Peter Martyr published his Legatio Babylonica, which mentioned Bermuda and the island was also included on Spanish charts of this year. The discovery is attributed to a Spanish explorer, Juan de Bermudez. Both Spanish and Portuguese ships used the islands as a replenishment spot for fresh meat and water, but legends of spirits and devils, now thought to have stemmed only from the callings of raucous birds (most likely the Bermuda Petrel), and of perpetual, storm-wracked conditions (most early visitors arrived under such conditions), kept them from attempting any permanent settlement on the Isle of Devils.

Bermudez and Gonzales Ferdinando d'Oviedo ventured to Bermuda in 1514 or 1515 with the intention to drop off a breeding stock of hogs on the island as a future stock of fresh meat for passing ships. The inclement weather prevented them landing however.

Some years later, a Portuguese ship on the way home from San Domingo wedged itself between two rocks on the reef. The crew tried to salvage as much as they could and spent the next four months building a new hull from Bermuda cedar to return to their initial departure point. One of these stranded sailors is most likely the person who carved the intials "R" and "P", "1543" into Spanish Rock. The initials probably stood for "Rex Portugaline" and later were incorrectly attributed to the Spanish, leading to the misnaming of this rocky outcrop of Bermuda.

For the next century the island was probably visited frequently but not settled. The first two British colonies in Virginia had failed, and a more determined effort was initiated by King James I of England, who granted a Royal Charter to The Virginia Company. In 1609, a flotilla of ships, left England under the Company's Admiral, Sir George Somers, to relieve the colony of Jamestown, settled two years before. Somers had previous experience sailing with both Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh. The flotilla was broken up by a storm, and the flagship, the Sea Venture, was wrecked off Bermuda (as depicted on the territory's Coat of Arms), leaving the survivors in possession of a new territory. (William Shakespeare's play The Tempest may have been influenced by William Strachey's account of this shipwreck.) The island was claimed for the English Crown, and the charter of the Virginia Company was extended to include it. In 1615, the island was passed to a new company, the Somers Isles Company (The Somers Isles remains an official name for the Colony), formed by the same shareholders.

Most of the survivors of the Sea Venture had carried on to Jamestown in 1610 aboard two Bermuda-built ships. Among these was John Rolfe, who left a wife and child buried in Bermuda, but would marry a Powhatan princess, Pocahontas, in Jamestown. Rolfe was also single-handedly responsible for beginning Virginia's tobacco industry (the economic basis of the Colony had been intended to be lumber). Deliberate settlement of Bermuda began with the arrival of the Plough, in 1612. With its limited land area, Bermuda has had difficulty ever since with population growth. In the first two centuries of settlement, it relied on steady emigration to keep the population manageable. Before the American Revolution, more than 10,000 Bermudians emigrated, primarily to the American South, where England (later, Britain) was displacing Spain as the dominant European imperial power. A steady trickle of outward migration continued as, by the end of the 18th Century, with seafaring being the only real industry, at least a third of the island's manpower was at sea at any one time.

In the 17th Century, however, the Somers Isles Company suppressed shipbuilding as it needed Bermudians to farm if it was to generate any income from the land. Bermuda was not a great success as an agricultural colony. The Bermuda cedar boxes it shipped tobacco to England in were reportedly worth more than their contents. The colony of Virginia far surpassed Bermuda in both quality and quantity of tobacco produced. After the dissolution of the Somers Isle Company, Bermudians rapidly abandoned agriculture for ship-building, replanting farmland with the native juniper (Juniperus Bermudiana, Bermuda cedar) trees that grew thickly over the whole island. Establishing effective control over the Turks Islands, Bermudians deforested their landscape to begin the salt trade that would become the world's largest, and remained the cornerstone of Bermuda's economy for the next century. Bermudian sailors would turn their hands to far more trades than supplying salt, however. Whaling, privateering, and the merchant trade were all pursued vigourously. The Bermuda sloop became highly regarded for its speed and manoverability. Indeed, at the end of the Battle of Trafalgar, the Bermuda sloop HMS Pickle, one of the fastest vessels in the Royal Navy, raced back to England with news of the victory and the death of Admiral Lord Nelson.

After the American Revolution, the British Royal Navy began improving the harbours and built a large dockyard on Ireland Island, in the west of the chain. Thereafter the navy used the bases as a strategic asset which later benefited the USA as well (see below).

In the early 20th century, as modern transport and communication systems developed, Bermuda became a popular destination for wealthy US, Canadian and British tourists. In addition, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act enacted by the United States against its trading partners in 1930 cut off Bermuda's once-thriving agricultural export trade - primarily fresh vegetables to the US - spurring the overseas territory to develop its tourist industry, which is second behind international business in terms of economic importance to the island.

Bermuda is located in the North Atlantic Ocean roughly 580 nautical miles (1074 kilometers) east-southeast of Cape Hatteras on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and roughly 590 nautical miles (1093 kilometers) southeast of Martha's Vinyard. (See map.) There are two incorporated municipalities in Bermuda; the City of Hamilton, and the Town of St. George. There are also a number of localities which are sometimes termed villages, among them Flatts Village, Tucker's Town and Somerset Village.

Contrary to common misconception, Bermuda is not located within the tropics. The subtropical, or warm temperate, climate is influenced by the Gulf Stream. Bermuda has a very humid climate and, as a result, the summer-time heat index can be very high, even when the actual temperature seems moderate. Winters can get decidedly chilly, and the powerful winds and heavy rain mean that the felt temperature can fall below freezing, even though the actual temperature may rarely drop much below 10° C. There are no sources of fresh water in Bermuda, all water had to be collected from rainfall and kept in cisterns.

Bermuda, as offshore domicile of many foreign companies, has a highly developed economy focused on international business and tourism. Its per capita income is approximately equivalent to the United States. CIA data shows a GDP of $2.33 billion in 2003, per capita, $36,000.

Bermuda is regarded as a premier offshore business jurisdiction, with no direct taxes on personal or corporate income. The local tax system is based upon import duties, and payroll and consumption taxes. Many leading international insurance companies are based in Bermuda and the island is considered the world's re-insurance centre. Bermuda is a financial exporter both in insurance and other financial services. Bermuda is also one of the largest reinsurance markets in the world.

Tourism is the second largest industry, with the island attracting most of its visitors from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

The currency used is the Bermuda dollar which is pegged to the US dollar. Bermudian notes carry the image of the British Queen. US Dollars and coins are used interchangeably with Bermudian notes and coins within the islands.

54.8% of the population is listed as black and 34.1% as white. The island has a growing Asian community. A significant segment of the population is of Portuguese heritage, the result of immigration from Portuguese islands, especially the Azores, over the past century.

It should be noted that these racial demographic terms are misleading. Most of the island's black population has a diverse ancestry, including significant European and Native American bloodlines. Portuguese Bermudians are often thought of as constituting a separate racial group, as with white (Hispanic) in the USA. Immigrants from Portuguese islands included blacks from the Cape Verde Islands, and many Portuguese intermarried with black and 'white' Bermudians. Consequently, there are many islanders with Portuguese ancestry, heritage, and names who are not considered among the 10% of the population typically listed as 'Portuguese'. Racial identity and labelling became a hot topic with the last census, which offered greater flexibility in how respondents could identify themselves racially. Resurgent interest in the island's Native American past, especially in St. David's, is leading many to identify themselves with the various Algonquian peoples sold into slavery on the island during its first century of settlement. In addition to large-scale Portuguese immigration, which began with several families from Madeira in the 1840s, there has been sustained immigration from the West Indies throughout the 20th Century.