In keeping with the evolution of the Westminster system of governance, Barbados has evolved into a Parliamentary democracy and Constitutional monarchy, meaning that all real power rests with the Parliament.

The government has been chosen by elections since 1961 elections, when Barbados achieved full self-governance.

Lara's match-winning performance of 153 not out against Australia in Bridgetown, Barbados in 1999 has been rated by Wisden as the second best batting performance in the history of Test cricket, next only to the 270 runs scored by Sir Donald Bradman in The Ashes Test match of 1937.

* Currently the Barbadian Government does not have foreign accreditation for Nigeria, however the Nigerian Government has said that it was highly desirous of Barbados establishing an embassy directly to Nigeria.

The UNCCD has 194 country Parties: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, The Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burma, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, the People's Republic of China, Colombia, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Côte d ' Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, European Union, Fiji, Finland, France, Gabon, The Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, the Republic of Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, South Korea, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Federated States of Micronesia, Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Niue, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, São Tomé and Príncipe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Thailand, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Since 1966, it has been a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, modelled on the British Westminster system, with Elizabeth II, Queen of Barbados, as head of state.

Their music is a mixture of native, African and Dutch elements, and is closely connected with trends from neighboring islands like Barbados, Martinique, Trinidad and Tobago and Guadeloupe, as well as the mainland former Dutch possession of Suriname, which has exported kaseko music to great success on the islands.

Barbados ' total land area is, and it has a coastline of length.

Along the north-south axis Barbados has a maximum length of, and east-west maximum breadth of.

The south-eastern part of the island has undergone small scale oil and gas capturing from possibly as early as 1919 when the British Union Oil Company acquired over 75 % of the drilling rights in Barbados.

Similar to Trinidad and Tobago to the southwest, the territorial Atlantic Ocean surrounding Barbados has been found to contain fossil fuels, however ongoing research is being conducted to give estimates of actual quantities.

Many of the country's legislative practices derive from the unwritten conventions of, and precedents set by, the United Kingdom's Westminster Parliament ; however, Barbados has evolved variations.

It has been proposed that Barbados become a republic.

Since achieving independence in 1966, the island nation of Barbados has transformed itself from a low-income economy dependent upon sugar production, into an upper-middle-income economy based on tourism and the offshore sector.

Barbados has several bilateral tax treaties, mostly aimed at removing double taxation on companies that operate in the Barbados economy.

Some of the countries which Barbados has taxation agreements with are:

The cultivation of sugar cane, such as the cane growing in this field outside Saint Andrew, Barbados | Saint Andrew, has always been a big part of the island's economy.

Livestock rearing isn't a major occupation in Barbados, chiefly because good pasture has always been scarce & imported animal feed is expensive. The island must import large quantities of meat and dairy products.

The manufacturing sector in Barbados has yet to recover from the recession of the late 1980s when bankruptcies occurred and almost one-third of the workforce lost their jobs.

Barbados has numerous internationally known hotels.

Barbados has long been an informational and communications centre in the Caribbean region.

Barbados has had various forms of Communications as early as the 1840s.

The railway system of Barbados implemented by Britain in the 1800s, primarily for transporting sugar cane across the island to the seaport Bridgetown, has also long since been removed.

In 1884, the Barbados Agricultural Society sent a letter to Sir Francis Hincks requesting his private and public views on whether the Dominion of Canada would favourably entertain having the then colony of Barbados admitted as a member of the Canadian Confederation.

In Barbados, Remembrance Day is not a public holiday.

The public service remains Barbados ' largest single employer.

The Ministry of Transport & Works of Barbados oversees the affairs of the nation's roads, highways, and the public transport system.

They are among the most common form of public transport in Barbados.

The very short turnaround between the decision to make the award and its announcement meant that the Governor-General of Barbados was not informed of the award before the public announcement, which caused some hurt feelings between London and Bridgetown.

I, _________________________, being appointed Prime Minister, do swear that I will to the best of my judgment, at all times when so required, freely give my counsel and advice to the Governor-General ( or any other person for the time being lawfully performing the functions of that office ) for the good management of the public affairs of Barbados, and I do further swear that I will not on any account, at any time whatsoever, disclose the counsel, advice, opinion or vote of any particular Minister or Parliamentary Secretary and that I will not, except with the authority of the Cabinet and to such extent as may be required for the good management of the affairs of Barbados, directly or indirectly reveal the business or proceedings of the Cabinet or the nature or contents of any documents communicated to me as Prime Minister or any matter coming to my knowledge in my capacity as such, and that in all things I will be a true and faithful Prime Minister.

Bridgetown is the centre of commercial activity in Barbados, as well as a central hub for the public transport network.

Voting outside the country by the general public is not allowed at Barbados ' various High Commissions, Embassies, and Consulates.

The Barbados National Trust, founded in 1960, is an organisation which works to preserve and protect the natural and artistic heritage of Barbados and to increase public awareness of Barbados ' historic and architectural treasures.

Barrow trained as a nurse, midwife and health care administrator, holding a variety of nursing, public health and public administration jobs in Barbados and Jamaica in the 1940s / 1950s.

Most of the non-political appointees to the Senate have been selected by the Governor-General from civil society organisations, labour collectives and public associations in Barbados.

As in the United Kingdom, traffic drives on the left, meaning that visitors from countries with right-hand traffic must take special care on Barbados ' roads.

Barbados has a very good highway system of main roads radiating from Bridgetown.

A rank that placed Barbados as 23rd globally for amount of vehicles, by the total surface area of roads.

On Barbados, flooding from the rainfall blocked a few roads and forced a few families to move to safer areas ; lightning from the outskirts of the storm left a portion of the island without power.

Some conventions are explicitly legislated ; for example, it is conventional in the United States and in Germany that motorists drive on the right side of the road, whereas in England, Australia, Mauritius and Barbados they drive on the left.

Examples include Greenland, Long Island, and Sable Island off North America ; Barbados and Trinidad off South America ; Great Britain, Ireland and Sicily off Europe ; Sumatra, Borneo and Java off Asia ; and New Guinea, Tasmania and Kangaroo Island off Australia.

* International: Direct microwave radio relay link with Martinique and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines ; tropospheric scatter to Barbados ; international calls beyond these countries are carried by Intelsat from Martinique.

: international: VHF / UHF radiotelephone from Saint Vincent to Barbados ; new SHF radiotelephone to Grenada and to Saint Lucia ; access to Intelsat earth station in Martinique through Saint Lucia

Of a crew of 185 only three survived ; lost was Lord Belhaven who was en route to take up the Governorship of Barbados.

1: Newfoundland ; 2: Nova Scotia ; 3: The Thirteen Colonies ; 4: Bermuda ; 5: Bahamas ; 6: British Honduras ( was Spanish c1750: became British in 1798 ); 7: Jamaica ; 8: British Leeward Islands and Barbados

This was later termed " Bussa's Rebellion " after the slave ranger, Bussa, who with his assistants hated slavery, found the treatment of slaves on Barbados to be " intolerable ", and believed the political climate in the UK made the time ripe to peacefully negotiate with planters for freedom ( Davis, p. 211 ; Northrup, p. 191 ).

* Richardson ; Bonham C. Economy and Environment in the Caribbean: Barbados and the Windwards in the Late 1800s ( The Press University of The West Indies, 1997 ) online edition

In 1675, Iversen claimed St. John and placed two men there ; in 1684, Governor Esmit granted it to two English merchants from Barbados but their men were chased off the island by two British sloops sent by Governor Stapleton of the British Leeward Islands.

In 1670 English settlers from Barbados founded Charles Town, capital of the new Province of Carolina ; traders from Carolina exchanged flintlocks, gunpowder, axes, glass beads, cloth and West Indian rum for white-tailed deer pelts for the English leather industry and Indian slaves for Caribbean plantations.

The deadliest hurricane ever was the 1970 Bhola cyclone ; the deadliest Atlantic hurricane was the Great Hurricane of 1780 which devastated Martinique, St. Eustatius and Barbados.

* Holetown, Saint James, Barbados ; sometimes called its founding name, Jamestown

; Barbados

Barbados is an Continental Island in the North Atlantic Ocean ; and is located at 13 ° 10 ' north of the equator, and 59 ° 32 ' west of the Prime Meridian.

Demographics of Barbados, Data of FAO, year 2005 ; Number of inhabitants in thousands.