Turks and Caicos Islands
Updated: Sep 14, 2022
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Country Name
The Turks and Caicos Islands.
Location
The Turks and Caicos Islands are a British Overseas Territory consisting of the larger Caicos Islands and smaller Turks Islands, two groups of tropical islands in the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean and northern West Indies.
Turks and Caicos is a tiny island nation located in the Caribbean. To the east, there’s Cuba, and to the north, the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
Capital
Cockburn Town.
Reason for naming the country
The Turks and Caicos Islands are named after the Turk's cap cactus (Melocactus intortus), and the Lucayan term caya hico, meaning 'string of islands.
Flag
The current flag was adopted in 1968. The flag is composed of a blue background with a Union Jack (the flag of the United Kingdom) in the canton and a yellow shield on the right side of the flag contains a shell, a lobster, and a cactus.
The shell and the Lobster represent the local fishing industry while the cactus represents the local flora.
Language
The official language of the islands is English. The population also speaks Turks and Caicos Islands Creole, which is similar to Bahamian Creole.
The minority languages spoken in Turks and Caicos include Haitian Creole (French-based language) and Spanish.
Due to its closeness to Cuba and Hispaniola, large Haitian Creole and Spanish-speaking communities have developed in the territory due to immigration, both legal and illegal, from Haitian Creole-speaking Haiti and from Spanish-speaking Cuba and the Dominican Republic.
Religion
The majority of the population are Christians about 86%, (Baptists 35.8%, Church of God 11.7%, Roman Catholics 11.4%, Anglicans 10%, Methodists 9.3%, Seventh-day Adventists 6%, Jehovah's Witnesses 1.8%), with other faiths making up the remaining 14%.
Currency
United States dollar (US$) (USD).
