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Netherlands
Antilles
Fact
Sheet :
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Area : 960
sq km (includes Bonaire, Curacao, Saba, Sint Eustatius, and
Sint Maarten, the Dutch part of the island of Saint Martin)
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Population : 223,652 (July 2007 est.)
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Capital : Willemstad
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Languages : Dutch
(official), Papiamento, English
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Currency :
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Netherlands
Antillean guilder (ANG)
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Dependency status :
part
of the Kingdom of the Netherlands; full autonomy in internal
affairs granted in 1954
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Elements of History :
Once
the center of the Caribbean slave trade, the island of Curacao
was hard hit by the abolition of slavery in 1863. Its prosperity
(and that of neighboring Aruba) was restored in the early
20th century with the construction of oil refineries to service
the newly discovered Venezuelan oil fields. The island of Saint Martin is shared with France; its southern portion is named Sint Maarten and is part of the Netherlands Antilles; its northern portion, called Saint Martin, is an overseas collectivity of France.
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Climate :
tropical;
ameliorated by northeast trade winds
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