Map:

Overview:
Once the center of the Caribbean slave trade, the island of Curacao was hard hit by the abolition of slavery in 1863. Its prosperity (and that of neighboring Aruba) was restored in the early 20th century with the construction of oil refineries to service the newly discovered Venezuelan oil fields. The island of Saint Martin is shared with France; its southern portion is named Sint Maarten and is part of the Netherlands Antilles; its northern portion is called Saint-Martin and is part of Guadeloupe (France).

The People:
Population: 219,958 (July 2005 est.)
Age structure:
0-14 years: 24.2% (male 27,302/female 26,002)
15-64 years: 67.3% (male 70,838/female 77,148)
65 years and over: 8.5% (male 7,673/female 10,995) (2005 est.)

Religions:
Roman Catholic 72%, Pentecostal 4.9%, Protestant 3.5%, Seventh-Day Adventist 3.1%, Methodist 2.9%, Jehovah's Witnesses 1.7%, other Christian 4.2%, Jewish 1.3%, other or unspecified 1.2%, none 5.2% (2001 census)

Government Type:
parliamentary

Leader(s) to pray for:
chief of state: Queen BEATRIX of the Netherlands (since 30 April 1980), represented by Governor General Frits GOEDGEDRAG (since 1 July 2002)
head of government: Prime Minister Etienne YS (since 3 June 2004)

Source: The World Factbook

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