Grand Bahama

pop (2000e) 47 400; area 1372 km²/530 sq mi. Island in the NW Bahamas; fourth largest island in the group; length 120 km/75 mi; chief town Freeport-Lucaya; popular tourist resort; home of the Underwater Explorers' Club; International Bazaar; oil transshipment at South Riding Point.

Grand Bahama is one of the northernmost of the islands of the Bahamas, and the closest major island to the United States, lying just 55 mi (90 km) off the coast of the state of Florida. Grand Bahama is the fourth largest island in the Bahama island chain of approximately 700 islands.

The island's earliest known inhabitants were the Stone Age hunter-gatherer Siboney Indians, of whom little evidence remains apart from artifacts such as ornamental shells or jewellery. The Arawak communities on Grand Bahama, who became known as Lucayans (a name that lives on in the popular tourist town of Port Lucaya) were believed to have advanced and well-organized social and political structures, and there were estimated to be approximately 4,000 on Grand Bahama at the time of the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadors in 1492. This arrival, and the subsequent claim of the island by Spain shortly after, eventually caused the Lucayans to disappear from Grand Bahama entirely, whether dying through the spreading of European diseases, through the frequent European genocides, or being captured as slaves (usually to mine for gold in the larger Caribbean islands of Hispaniola or Cuba, or to dive for pearls in Trinidad).

The Spanish gave the island the name Gran Bajamar, meaning "Great Shallows", and what the eventual name of the Bahamas islands as a whole is derived from. Grand Bahama's existence for almost two centuries was largely governed by the nature of these "great shallows" - the coral reefs surrounding the island were treacherous, and repelled its Spanish owners (who largely left it alone apart from for infrequent en-route stops by ships for provisions) while attracting pirates, who would lure ships onto the reefs where they would run aground and be plundered. The Spaniards took little interest in the island after enslaving the native Lucayan inhabitants, and the islands were claimed by Great Britain in 1670.

By the middle of the 20th century, Grand Bahama's population numbered around 500 and the island was one of the least developed of the Bahamas islands. However the island finally gained a stable source of income when in 1955 a Virginian financier named Wallace Groves began redevelopment with the Bahamian government to build the city of Freeport under the Hawksbill Creek Agreement and create the Grand Bahama Port Authority Soon after, the ambitious Edward St. George, with the financial help of Sir Jack Hayward, took the company to new frontiers. Grand Bahama became the second most populous island in the Bahamas (over 50,000 in 2004), and the tourists that it attracts are now the mainstay of the island's economy. Grand Bahama's tourism sector is complemented by an oil bunkering facility owned by the Venezuelan Government and a transhipment port part owned by Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa and the Grand Bahama Port Authority.

West End, which was until the rise of Freeport the capital of Grand Bahama, is the oldest city and Western most settlement on the island.

Cruise ships call at Freeport Harbour and numerous airlines use Grand Bahama International Airport (FPO).