This is a

demography Demography () is the statistical study of human populations: their size, composition (e.g., ethnic group, age), and how they change through the interplay of fertility (births), mortality (deaths), and migration. Demographic analysis examine ...

of the

population Population is a set of humans or other organisms in a given region or area. Governments conduct a census to quantify the resident population size within a given jurisdiction. The term is also applied to non-human animals, microorganisms, and pl ...

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, sometimes known simply as Saint Vincent or SVG, is an island country in the eastern Caribbean. It is located in the southeast Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, which lie in the West Indies, at the south ...

including

population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...

ethnicity An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they Collective consciousness, collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, ...

, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.

Population size and structure

According to the 2012 census, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines had a total population of 109,991, an increase of 969 since the 2001 census. While the country's population continues to increase, annual growth has slowed since the 1991 census. The estimated population for is (per ).

Structure of the population

Vital statistics

Ethnic groups

Saint Vincents's population is predominantly African (77,764 in 2012; 71.2% of the total population) or of mixed African-European descent (25,111; 27.6%). 1.1% of the population is East Indian (1,199 residents in 2001) and 1.5% white (753 Portuguese and 889 other white). Saint Vincent & the Grenadines also has a small

indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology) In biogeography, a native species is indigenous to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only local natural evolution (though often populari ...

(Amerindian/ Carib) population. During the past decades the indigenous population changed from 3,347 at the 1991 census (3.1% of the population) to 3,898 at the 2001 census (3.6% of the population) to 3,280 at the 2012 census (3.0% of the population).

Black Caribs The Garifuna people ( or ; pl. Garínagu in Garifuna) are a people of mixed free African and Amerindian ancestry that originated in the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent and traditionally speak Garifuna, an Arawakan language. The Garifuna a ...

are originally from the island of Saint Vincent, formed in the 18th century by the mixture between

Kalinago The Kalinago, also called Island Caribs or simply Caribs, are an Indigenous people of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean. They may have been related to the Mainland Caribs (Kalina) of South America, but they spoke an unrelated language know ...

and enslaved Africans who escaped. A part of their community (now known as

Garifuna The Garifuna people ( or ; pl. Garínagu in Garifuna) are a people of mixed free African and Amerindian ancestry that originated in the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent and traditionally speak Garifuna, an Arawakan language. The Garifuna ...

) was expelled from St. Vincent in 1797 and exported to the island of

Roatán Roatán () is an island in the Caribbean, about off the northern coast of Honduras. The largest of the Bay Islands Department, Bay Islands of Honduras, it is located between the islands of Utila and Guanaja. It is approximately long, and le ...

, Honduras, from where they migrated to the Caribbean coast of the mainland of Central America and spread as far as

Belize Belize is a country on the north-eastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a maritime boundary with Honduras to the southeast. P ...

and

Nicaragua Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ...

. While the Garifuna have retained their

language, the Black Caribs of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines speak Creole English. The remaining 0.8% of the population includes

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

and people from the Middle East.

Language

While the official language is English most Vincentians speak

Vincentian Creole Vincentian Creole is an English-based creole language spoken in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. It contains elements of Spanish, Antillean Creole, and various Iberian Romance languages. It has also been influenced by the indigenous Kalinago/ ...

, an

English-based creole An English-based creole language (often shortened to English creole) is a creole language for which English was the '' lexifier'', meaning that at the time of its formation the vocabulary of English served as the basis for the majority of the cr ...

, as their

mother tongue A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongue'' refers ...

. English is used in education, government, religion, and other formal domains, while Creole (or "dialect" as it is referred to locally) is used in informal situations such as in the home and among friends.

Religion

Protestant 75% (Anglican 47%, Methodist 28%), Roman Catholic 13%, other (includes Hindu, Seventh-Day Adventist, other Protestant) 12%. According to the 2001 census, 81.5% of the population of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is considered

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

, 6.7% has another religion and 8.8% has no religion or did not state a religion (1.5%). According to the 2012 census, 82.3% of the population identifies as Christian (mainly Pentecostal, Anglican or Seventh-day Adventists); 7.5% have no religion, and there are groups of Rastafarians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews and Baha’is.US State Department, 2022 report on Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
/ref> Between 1991 and 2001 the number of Anglicans, Brethren, Methodists and Roman Catholics decreased, while the number of Pentecostals, Evangelicals and Seventh-day Adventists increased.

References

External links

* – Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Department of Statistics
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines profile
– Caribbean Community Statistics {{DEFAULTSORT:Demographics Of Saint Vincent And The Grenadines Society of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines