18°27N 77°56W, pop (2000e) 89 000. Port and capital city of St James parish, Cornwall county, NW coast of Jamaica; free port and principal tourist centre of the island; airport; railway; trade in bananas, sugar; Rose Hall Great House (1770), old British fort, 18th-c church.
Montego Bay is a city in Jamaica that contains Jamaica's largest airport, the Sir Donald Sangster International Airport.
Montego Bay is known for its duty free shopping and cruise line terminal at its Free Port on a beautiful peninsula jutting into the bay.
Montego Bay is fourth in population to Kingston, Portmore and Spanish Town with about 120,000 people and lies in St. James Parish on the northwest coast of the island.
The name "Montego Bay" is believed to have originated as a corruption of the Spanish word manteca ("lard"), allegedly because during the Spanish period it was the port where lard, leather, and beef were exported. Christopher Columbus, when he first visited the island in 1494, named the bay Golfo de Buen Tiempo ('Fair Weather Gulf')
During the epoch of slavery, from the mid-17th century until 1834, and well into the 20th century, the town functioned primarily as a sugar port.
In 1980, Montego Bay was proclaimed a city by act of parliament, but this has not meant that it has acquired any form of autonomy as it continues to be an integral part of St. James parish.
Today, the city is known for its large regional hospital (Cornwall Regional Hospital), port facilities, second homes for numerous upper class Jamaicans from Kingston as well as Americans and Europeans, fine restaurants, and shopping opportunities. The coastland near Montego Bay is occupied by numerous tourist resorts, some newly built, some occupying the grounds of old sugar cane plantations with some of the original buildings and mill-works still standing.
Twin Cities
Atlanta, USACoordinates: 18°28′N 77°55′W
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