San Salvador (Bahamas)

San Salvador
	NASA image
Waters	Atlantic Ocean
Archipelago	Bahamas
Geographical location	24 ° 2 ′ N , 74 ° 29 ′ W Coordinates: 24 ° 2 ′ N , 74 ° 29 ′ W
length	19.25 km
width	8 kilometers
surface	94.9 km²
Residents	930 (2010) ; 9.8 inhabitants / km²
main place	Cockburn Town
	map

San Salvador is an island and a district on the northeastern edge of the Bahamas . With an area of 94.9 km², the island is 11.2 km long from east to west and 19.25 km from north to south. With the exception of the area around Cockburn Town in the west, it is surrounded by several coral reefs , so that ships can only enter here.

History and naming

Around 1680 the English pirate John Watling (or George Watling) named the island after himself, and the name Watling Island lasted until 1925. In that year, the House of Assembly , the parliament of the Bahamas, decided to return the island to San Salvador (span. for "Holy Redeemer") and thus to give it back the name that Christopher Columbus had chosen for the island. The research of the Benedictine Father Chrysostom Schreiner OSB , who had put together evidence that San Salvador / Watling Island was the island of Guanahani , where Columbus first entered the New World , was decisive for the renaming . Until the beginning of the 19th century, the island known today as Cat Island was called San Salvador .

The renaming in San Salvador helped to revive the economy of the island , which had been lying on the ground since the abolition of slavery in 1834, through tourism.

In 2010, around 900 people lived in San Salvador, the majority of them in Cockburn Town, the seat of local government.

Attractions

Watlings Castle - ruins of a plantation that may have belonged to the pirate Watling

Dixon Hill Lighthouse - petroleum lighthouse built in 1887

Farquharson Plantation - the largest and best preserved ruined plantation from the time of slavery

Footnotes

^ Colman Barry: Upon these rocks. Catholics in the Bahamas . St. John's Abbey Press, Collegeville 1973. ISBN 0-8146-0812-4 . P. 123.
^ Colman Barry: Upon these rocks . P. 122.

Web links

Wikivoyage: San Salvador (Bahamas) - Travel Guide

[1] Colman Barry: Upon these rocks. Catholics in the Bahamas . St. John's Abbey Press, Collegeville 1973. ISBN 0-8146-0812-4 . P. 123.

[2] Colman Barry: Upon these rocks . P. 122.