Antigua and Barbuda is an archipelagic country in the Caribbean composed of Antigua, Barbuda, and dozens of other small islands. Antigua and Barbuda has a total area of 440 km2 (170 sq mi), making it one of the smallest countries in the Caribbean. The country is mostly flat, with the highest points on Antigua being in the Shekerley Mountains and on Barbuda the Highlands. The country has a tropical savanna climate, with pockets of tropical monsoon in Antigua's southwest. Its most populated city is St. John's, followed by All Saints and Bolans. The sole settlement in Barbuda is Codrington. Most of the country resides in the Central Plain that stretches from St. John's to English Harbour.
Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east and the Caribbean Sea on the west, Antigua and Barbuda is located within the Leeward Islands moist forest and Leeward Islands xeric scrub ecoregions. The country shares maritime borders with Anguilla, Saint Barthélemy, and Saint Kitts and Nevis to the west, Montserrat to the southwest, and Guadeloupe to the south. Antigua and Barbuda has numerous natural parks, including Codrington Lagoon, one of the largest internal bodies of water in the Lesser Antilles. Despite its dense population, the country has large swaths of undeveloped land, however, Antigua and Barbuda has experienced many environmental issues due to climate change.
Hunter-gatherers settled the islands starting around 3700 BC, likely arriving on canoes from Central and South America. They were followed by the Arawaks of Venezuela during the Ceramic period. In 1493, Christopher Columbus surveyed the island of Antigua, which resulted in an attempt at Spanish settlement in 1520. Antigua remained uncolonised until 1632 when Edward Warner and his small party created the first successful British colony. Barbuda was under the control of the Codrington family until the 1860s. Antiguan independence was first proposed by Prince Klaas in 1728, who attempted to make the island an independent kingdom. After emancipation in 1834, Antigua's autonomy slowly increased, while Barbuda was slowly integrated into Antigua. The first democratic elections were held in 1951, and by 1981, Antigua and Barbuda was independent. From 1960 until 2004, the Bird family dominated the archipelago's politics with only one interruption, which ended with the election of Baldwin Spencer to the premiership.
Since 2014, the Labour Party has dominated national politics. Antigua and Barbuda is a member of the Commonwealth and a Commonwealth realm, being a constitutional monarchy with Charles III as its head of state. The country is a unitary state, with Barbuda being administered by the Barbuda Council since 1976. Antigua is divided into six parishes. The central government is composed of three main branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. It has a bicameral national legislature comprising the directly elected House of Representatives and the Senate appointed by the Governor-General, the representative of the monarch. The Labour Party and the United Progressive Party have dominated the country's politics since 1994. The country has a proportionally high foreign-born population; most people are of African descent, with significant populations of Europeans, Hispanics, and Indians. The country is majority Christian, with most being Protestant. The most spoken home language in the country is Antiguan and Barbudan Creole. Compared to neighboring countries, Antigua and Barbuda ranks highly in most economic indicators, and ranks about average in political freedoms.
Antigua and Barbuda is a high-income country and is the most developed country in the Caribbean by Human Development Index. It is a member of the United Nations, the OECS, the Regional Security System, CARICOM, and the World Trade Organisation. Antigua and Barbuda is one of the only countries in the Caribbean to maintain an air force, and has a mostly service-based economy. Antigua and Barbuda maintains significant influence in the former British Leeward Islands and the eastern Caribbean, having the largest economy and population in the former colony. However, the country continues to struggle with human rights and political polarisation, with declining freedom of the press and a significant Barbudan independence movement re-emerging due to tensions between the islands.
Antigua is Spanish for 'ancient' and barbuda is Spanish for 'bearded'. The island of Antigua was originally called Waladli by the Arawaks, and the Caribs possibly called Barbuda Wa'omoni. Christopher Columbus, while sailing by in 1493, may have named it Santa Maria la Antigua, after an icon in the Spanish Seville Cathedral. The "bearded" of Barbuda is thought to refer either to the male inhabitants of the island, or the bearded fig trees present there. The term Wadadli is a corrupted form of the original Arawak name, emerging from a misspelling in a popular 1970s song. The term is sometimes used in Antiguan and Barbudan Creole to refer to the island's original name. Aanteega an' Baabyuuda is the Creole endonym for the country, deriving from the English name.
Archaic-period hunter-gatherers called the Ciboney were the first culture present in Antigua and Barbuda. Carbon dating has established the earliest settlements started around 3700 BC. They were succeeded by the ceramic age pre-Columbian Arawak-speaking Saladoid people who migrated from the lower Orinoco River. They introduced agriculture, raising, among other crops, the Antigua black pineapple (Ananas comosus), corn, sweet potatoes, chillies, guava, tobacco, and cotton. Later on the Caribs settled the island.
Christopher Columbus was the first European to sight the islands in 1493. The Spanish did not colonise Antigua until after a combination of European and African diseases, malnutrition, and slavery eventually extirpated most of the Native population; smallpox was probably the greatest killer.
The English settled on Antigua in 1632; Christopher Codrington settled on Barbuda in 1685. Tobacco and then sugar was grown, worked by a large population of slaves transported from West Africa, who soon came to vastly outnumber the European settlers.
The English maintained control of the islands, repulsing an attempted French attack in 1666. The brutal conditions endured by the slaves led to revolts in 1701 and 1729 and a planned revolt in 1736, the last led by Prince Klaas, though it was discovered before it began and the ringleaders were executed. Slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1833, affecting the economy. This was exacerbated by natural disasters such as the 1843 earthquake and the 1847 hurricane. Mining occurred on the isle of Redonda, however, this ceased in 1929 and the island has since remained uninhabited.
Part of the Leeward Islands colony, Antigua and Barbuda became part of the short-lived West Indies Federation from 1958 to 1962. Antigua and Barbuda subsequently became an associated state of the United Kingdom with full internal autonomy on 27 February 1967. The 1970s were dominated by discussions as to the islands' future and the rivalry between Vere Bird of the Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party (ABLP) (Premier from 1967 to 1971 and 1976 to 1981) and the Progressive Labour Movement (PLM) of George Walter (Premier 1971–1976). Eventually, Antigua and Barbuda gained full independence on 1 November 1981; Vere Bird became prime minister of the new country. The country opted to remain within the Commonwealth, retaining Elizabeth II (r. 1952–2022) as head of state, with the first governor, Sir Wilfred Jacobs, as governor-general. Succeeding Wilfred Jacobs were James Carlisle (1993–2007), Louise Lake-Tack (2007–2014), and the present since 2014 being Rodney Williams.
The first two decades of Antigua's independence were dominated politically by the Bird family and the ABLP, with Vere Bird ruling from 1981 to 1994, followed by his son Lester Bird from 1994 to 2004. Though providing a degree of political stability, and boosting tourism to the country, the Bird governments were frequently accused of corruption, cronyism and financial malfeasance. Vere Bird Jr., the elder son, was forced to leave the cabinet in 1990 following a scandal in which he was accused of smuggling Israeli weapons to Colombian drug-traffickers. Another son, Ivor Bird, was convicted of possessing cocaine in 1995. Also in 1995, Hurricane Luis caused severe damage on Barbuda.