Share in the Jamaican Experience

What better way to experience the culture of a nation than through its people? For travellers seeking insight into the Jamaican experience and the warm welcome of a Jamaican friend, the island’s Meet-the-People programme provides an ideal option. Launched in 1968 by the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB), the Meet-the-People programme reaches out to visitors curious to explore the culture of this vibrant Caribbean island, taking them beyond the traditional resort and beach setting into the colourful realm of Jamaica’s lifestyle, tradition and customs.

An Enriching Experience of Hospitality

Visitors wishing to take part in the Meet-the-People programme are teamed up with Jamaican hosts or volunteers who share a common profession, hobby or interest, free of cost. In true Jamaican fashion, these volunteers offer a hand of friendship and hospitality to visitors who genuinely want to know Jamaicans and the Jamaican way of life.

Meet-the-People allows the visitor to meet a Jamaican who can enhance their enjoyment of the real Jamaica. Guests may get to meet a family or know a fellow musician, doctor, photographer, nurse, teacher or artist, or participate in a wide range of activities, such as hiking, shopping at a local craft or food market, visit a church, tour a facility or have a chat over Jamaica’s famous Blue Mountain coffee.

Whatever the focus, these activities are uniquely Jamaican, providing an island experience that only locals can create, and a pathway to the unique aspects of Jamaica’s rich endearing heritage in people, culture, music, cuisine and natural landscape. The Jamaica Tourist Board will make all arrangements for you to participate in the Meet-the-People programme! Once you have confirmed your accommodations and your travel dates, simply sign up online. We are waiting to welcome you!

CAPITAL CITY - KINGSTON

Kingston is the capital and largest city of Jamaica and is located on the southeastern coast of the island country. In the Americas, Kingston is the largest predominantly English-speaking city south of the United States.

The city proper is bounded by Six Miles to the west, Stony Hill to the north, Papine to the northeast and Harbour View to the east. Communities in rural St. Andrew such as Gordon Town, Mavis Bank, Lawrence Tavern, Mt. Airy and Bull Bay would not be described as being in Kingston.
Two parts make up the central area of Kingston: the historic but troubled Downtown, and New Kingston. Attractions include the nearby Hellshire and Lime Cay beaches, the National Gallery of Jamaica, the ruins of Port Royal, and Devon House, a mansion with adjoining park that once belonged to Jamaica's first black millionaire. Several annual and well-visited festivals are held in Kingston

History
Kingston was founded on 22 July 1692, as a place for refugees and survivors of the 1692 earthquake that destroyed Port Royal. Before the earthquake, Kingston’s functions were purely agricultural. The earthquake survivors set up a refugee camp on the sea front. Approximately two thousand people died due to mosquito-borne diseases. Initially the refugees lived in a tented camp on Colonel Barry's Hog Crawle. The town did not begin to grow until after the further destruction of Port Royal by the Nick Catania Pirate Fleet's fire in 1703. By 1716 it had become the largest town and the centre of trade for Jamaica.

By the end of the 18th century the city contained more than 3000 brick buildings. Kingston took over the functions of Spanish Town (the capital at the time). These functions included agriculture, commercial, processing, and a main transportation hub to and from Kingston and other sections of the island.
The government passed an act to transfer the government offices to Kingston from Spanish Town, which occurred in 1872. It kept this status when the island was granted independence in 1962.
In 1907, 800 people died in another earthquake known as the 1907 Kingston earthquake, destroying nearly all the historical buildings south of Parade in the city.
The western section of the city was not the focus of development, and that area proved to be a tense area in political times. The 1970s saw deteriorating economic conditions that led to recurrent violence and a decline in tourism which later affected the island.
In the 1980 general elections, the democratic socialist People's National Party (PNP) government was voted out. Subsequent governments have been open market oriented since the 1980s. Within a global urban era, the 1990s saw that Kingston has made efforts to modernize and develop its city structure and functions. Various organizations such as The Kingston Restoration Company, the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) and the Port Authority of Jamaica, along with the Port Royal Development Company, among others sought to develop the urban structure of the city.
Demographics
Despite the fact that the majority of the population is of African descent, Kingston is also the home to various ethic groups; the largest groups are Hispanics, mostly from Latin America; East Indians and Chinese are the next largest groups, as evidenced by the many Asian restaurants in Kingston; smaller numbers of Europeans, mostly from Cuba and Great Britain, including a number of Christian Syrians and Lebanese. People of mixed ancestry make up a sizable minority in the city as well.
Religion
There are a wide variety of Christian churches in the city. Most are Protestant, a legacy of British colonization of the island. The chief denominations are Church of God, Baptist, Anglican, Methodist, Roman Catholic, Seventh-day Adventist, and Pentecostal. Afro-Christian syncretic religions such as Rastafarianism are also widespread.
There is a Jewish synagogue in the city as well as a large number of Buddhists and Muslims. There are several Islamic organizations and mosques in Jamaica, including the Islamic Council of Jamaica and the Islamic Education and Dawah Center, both located in Kingston and offering classes in Islamic studies and daily prayers in congregation
Geography
Kingston is surrounded by the Blue Mountains, Red Hills, Long Mountain and the Kingston Harbour. The city is situated on the Liguanea Plain, an alluvial plain alongside the Hope River. Kingston experiences frequent earthquakes, including the 1907 earthquake.
Climate
Kingston has a tropical climate, specifically a tropical wet-and-dry climate, characterized by a wet season from May to November, which coincides with the hurricane season, and a dry season from December to April. During the dry season, there is not much rainfall, however, cold and stationary fronts occur at this time, and often bring heavy showers, especially in March.
Road
Kingston is well served by buses, mini buses and taxis, which operate throughout the city with major hubs at Parade, Cross Roads, Half Way Tree and elsewhere.
Private car ownership levels are high and like many major urban conurbations Kingston suffers from frequent traffic jams and pollution.
Services
Kingston, as the capital, is the financial, cultural, economic and industrial centre of Jamaica. Many financial institutions are based in Kingston, and the city boasts the largest number of hospitals, schools, universities and cultural attractions of any urban area on the island. Notable Kingston landmarks include the University of the West Indies, Jamaica Defence Force Museum, and Bob Marley Museum.
Sister cities
Kingston has five sister cities:
Miami, Florida, United States
Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States
Coventry, England, United Kingdom
Guadalajara, Mexico
Shenzhen, China

POPULATION

In 2008, Jamaica had an estimated population of 2,825,928.

According to the 2001 census, Jamaica's population mainly consists of people of African descent (referring to those who have origins mainly from Africa), comprising 91.2% of the demographics. Multiracial Jamaicans make up 6.2% of the population, and "other or unknown" Jamaicans (including Indian, Chinese, Lebanese, Syrian, English, Scottish, Irish, and German Jamaicans) make up 2.6% of the population. Immigration has been greatly rising from China, Haiti, Cuba, Colombia, and other Latin American countries; 20,000 Latin Americans currently reside in Jamaica. 7,000 Americans also reside in Jamaica.

Jamaica's annual rate of population growth has been relatively stable since roughly the end of World War I. Between 1881 and 1921, emigration and disease caused the rate of population growth to fall to very low levels. Some 156,000 Jamaicans emigrated during this period, 35 percent of the country's natural increase. Between 1911 and 1921, the rate of growth was only 0.4 percent per year as workers left Jamaica for Costa Rican banana plantations, Cuban sugar estates, and the Panama Canal. The burgeoning industries of the United States and Canada also attracted many Jamaicans during this period. Thousands of Jamaicans, however, returned home with the fall of sugar prices precipitated by the Great Depression. As a result from 1921 to 1954, the rate of population growth rose, averaging 1.7 percent per year.

Increased emigration after World War II reduced the rate of population growth once again. Between 1954 and 1970, the rate of growth was only 1.4 percent because large numbers of Jamaicans moved to Britain, the United States, Canada, and elsewhere. This exodus continued unabated during the 1970s and early 1980s, when 276,200 men and women, over 10 percent of the total population, departed. A significant percentage of the emigrants were skilled workers, technicians, doctors, and managers, thus creating a huge drain on the human resources of Jamaican society. The world economic recession of the 1980s reduced opportunities for migration as a number of countries tightened their immigration laws. Nevertheless, by the mid-1980s, it was estimated that more than half of all Jamaicans lived outside the island.

In July 1983 the Jamaican Parliament adopted the National Population Policy, which was developed by the Population Policy Task Force under the auspices of the Ministry of Health. The objectives of the policy were to achieve a population not in excess of 3 million by the year 2000; to promote health and increase the life expectancy of the population; to create employment opportunities and reduce unemployment, underemployment, and emigration; to provide access to family-planning services for all Jamaicans and reduce the average number of children per family from four to two, thus achieving replacement fertility levels; to promote balanced rural, urban, and regional development to achieve an optimal spatial distribution of population; and to improve the satisfaction of basic needs and the quality of life through improved housing, nutrition, education, and environmental conditions.

Family planning services have been visible, accessible, and active in Jamaica since the 1960s. The success of family planning reduced the country's birth rate by about 35 percent from 1965 to 1985. The Planning Institute of Jamaica, a government agency, estimated that the crude birth rate (the annual number of births per 1,000 population) was 24.3 per 1,000 in 1985. The total fertility rate (the average number of children born to a woman during her lifetime) decreased from 5.5 in 1970 to 3.5 by 1983. The government perceived its population goal of 3 million or less by the year 2000 as feasible only if the yearly population growth rate did not exceed 1.6 percent and the replacement fertility rate were two children per woman.

The crude death rate (the annual number of deaths per 1,000 population) was quite low at 6 per 1,000 population in 1985. By comparison, the United States had a crude death rate of 9 per 1,000 in the same year. Between 1965 and 1985, Jamaica's crude death rate declined by 44 percent, the result of significant levels of investment in health care delivery systems and improved sanitation facilities during the 1970s. In 1985 life expectancy at birth (the average number of years a newborn infant can expect to live under current mortality levels) was very high at seventy-three years. The infant mortality rate (the annual number of deaths of children younger than 1 year old per 1,000 births) was 20 per 1,000 births during the mid-1980, and this rate was consistent with that of 23 per 1,000 found in other English-speaking Caribbean islands.

Jamaica, like most of the other Commonwealth Caribbean islands, was densely populated. In 1986 its estimated population density was 209.62 persons per square kilometer. In terms of arable land, the population totaled nearly 1,000 persons per square kilometer, making it one of the most densely populated countries in the world. Since the 1960s, the population has become increasingly urban. In 1960, only 34 percent of the population lived in urban areas, but in the late 1980s, more than 50 percent of the population was urban. The heavily urbanized parishes of Kingston, St. Andrew, St. James, and St. Catherine accounted for 48.3 percent of Jamaica's total population in 1983.

Jamaica is a country of young people. Roughly 40 percent of the population was under fifteen years of age in the late 1980s. The fastest-growing age groups were those ten to thirty-four years of age and those seventy and over. Slower growth for middle-aged groups was generally explained by their greater tendency to emigrate. The 1982 census revealed that the group up to nine years old was the only one not becoming larger; this suggested both that the country's population was aging and that family planning was working. The 1982 census also revealed that 51 percent of the population was female.

The country's national motto points to the various ethnic groups present on the island. Although a predominantly black nation of West African descent, Jamaica had significant minorities of East Indians, Chinese, Europeans, Syrians, Lebanese, and numerous mixtures thereof in the late 1980s. Approximately 95 percent of all Jamaicans were of partial or total African descent, including 76 percent of complete African descent, 15 percent of Afro-European descent, and 4 percent of either Afro-East Indian or Afro-Chinese descent. Nearly 2 percent of the population was East Indian, close to 1 percent Chinese, and the remainder was made up of Europeans, peoples of the Middle East, and others. Although racial differences were not as important as class differences, the lightness of one's skin was still an issue, especially since minorities were generally members of the upper classes.

About 75 percent of Jamaica's population was Protestant, and 8 percent was Roman Catholic; various Muslim, Jewish, and spiritualist groups were also present. Rastafarians constituted roughly 5 percent of the population. Religious activities were popular, and religion played a fairly important role in society. The most striking religious trend occurring in Jamaica in the 1980s, as it was throughout the Americas, was the increasing number of charismatic or evangelical Christian groups.

The population of Jamaica in 2003 was estimated by the United Nations at 2,651,000, which placed it as number 135 in population among the 193 nations of the world. In that year approximately 7% of the population was over 65 years of age, with another 31% of the population under 15 years of age. There were 97 males for every 100 females in the country in 2003. According to the UN, the annual population growth rate for 2000–2005 is 0.92%, with the projected population for the year 2015 at 2,977,000. The population density in 2002 was 239 per sq km (620 per sq mi). Most of the population resides in coastal regions.

It was estmatd by the Population Reference Bureau that 56 % of the population lived in urban areas in 2001. The capitayl city, Kingston, had a population of 655,000 in that year.

Other leading cities are Spanish Town, Portmore and Montego Bay. According to the United Nations, the urban population growth rate for 2000-2005 was 1,7 %.

JAMAICA

GEOGRAPHY OF JAMAICA

The islands of the Caribbean look like stepping stones stretching in an arc from the western end of Venezuela in South America to the peninsula of Florida in North America. The Caribbean islands are divided into two groups:

The Greater Antilles: Forming the northern part of the arc are four large islands, Cuba, Hispaniola (made up of Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Jamaica and Puerto Rico.

The Lesser Antilles: The eastern end of the arc consists of the smaller islands which together form the Lesser Antilles. These include the West Indian islands of St. Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla, Antigua, Montserrat (this group is called the Leeward Islands), Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Dominica (This group is called the Windward Islands), Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago and the French islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe.

The islands vary widely in size, ranging from Cuba and Hispaniola, by far the largest, to the tiny islands of the Grenadines. Those which have English as their official language and are members of the Commonwealth are usually referred to as the West Indies.

The body of water bounded by these islands and the northern coast of South America is the Caribbean Sea

Almost at the centre of the Caribbean Sea, Jamaica lies 150 kilometres (90 miles) south of Cuba and 160 kilometres (100 miles) west of Haiti, the two nearest countries. The closest point to Jamaica in South America is Cartagena in Colombia, a distance of 710 kilometres (445 miles) almost due south The latitude and longitude of the capital, Kingston, are about 18 degrees N and 78 degrees W.

Jamaica is the largest of the English Speaking West Indian islands. It has an area of 11,424 square kilometres (4,411 square miles), more than twice the area of Trinidad, which is next in size, and measures 243 kilometres (146 miles) from east to west. Its greatest width is 80 kilometres (51 miles), from St. Ann's Bay to Portland Point. The distance from Kingston to the nearest point on the north coast, Annotto Bay, is 36 kilometres (22 miles).

Jamaica is centrally situated in the Caribbean Zone. It lies on the direct sea routes from the United States of America and Europe to the Panama Canal.

ORIGIN OF THE ISLAND
Jamaica belongs to the Central American region of the Western Hemisphere. The West Indian islands are actually the summits of a submarine range of mountains which in prehistoric times perhaps formed one large land mass connecting Central America to Venezuela in South America.

During the ages, vast changes took place in this region of the earth's crust. The land subsided beneath the sea. When it rose again only the highest parts of it appeared above the surface of the sea. These formed the Caribbean islands, which have remained separate and distinct islands ever since.

A close examination of the structure of the islands shows that there is a single mountain range in Puerto Rico which may be regarded as the centre of the submarine system. This range runs into Haiti, where it divides into three separate branches connected by submarine ridges. The northern branch passes through the north of Cuba as the Organos Mountains, and then into the Peninsula of Yucatan. The central branch passes into southern Cuba as the Sierra Maestra and continues under the sea into Central America. The south range passes through Jamaica, forming the Blue Mountains, the central mountain range of the island, and continues into Honduras.

East of Puerto Rico the main chain divides itself, forming an inner chain and an outer chain of islands. The inner chain includes St. Lucia, St. Vincent and Grenada. The other chain can be traced through the Virgin Islands, Antigua, Barbados, Tobago and northern Trinidad, continuing into the South American Continent as the coastal mountains of Venezuela.

DESCRIPTION
Christopher Columbus's thoughts as he first set eyes on Jamaica while his fleet steered for St. Ann's Bay on his second voyage of discovery to the New World in 1494, are com-municated to us by the Spanish historian Andres Bernaldez in the following description:

"It is the fairest island eyes have beheld; mountainous and the land seems to touch the sky; very large; bigger than Sicily, has a circumference of 800 leagues (I mean miles), and all full of valleys and fields and plains; it is very strong and extraordinarily populous; even on the edge of the sea as well as inland it is full of very big villages, very near together, about four leagues apart."

Bernaldez, of course, grossly exaggerated the circumference of the island, which is about 740 kilometres (460 miles); and our mountains do not seem to touch the sky. But although the face of the island has been changed to some degree since then, particularly by the work of man, this description of the island's natural beauty is not unjustified today.

The student of geography will find, nevertheless, that when temperature, soil, vegetation, structure and natural resources are taken into consideration, this semi-tropical island is, from a purely geographical standpoint, an excellent habitation for human beings.