Antigua and Barbuda

Through the ages

Rivals in history

The kingdoms, empires and states Antigua and Barbuda fought or stood against, from the first to today.

1. Kalinago (Island Caribs)1632 to 1700

   Kalinago war parties from Dominica and Guadeloupe raided the young English settlements on Antigua in the 1600s, carrying off settlers and enslaved workers. English expeditions struck back at Kalinago villages until the raids faded.

2. 🇫🇷 Kingdom of France1666 to 1815

   A French force captured Antigua in 1666, and the Treaty of Breda returned it in 1667. In the wars of the 1700s, English Harbour supplied British fleets fighting the French islands nearby, and Antigua was never taken again.

3. 🇺🇸 United States1776 to 1787

   During the American War of Independence, American privateers preyed on Antigua's shipping. After the war Horatio Nelson, based at English Harbour from 1784, seized American ships trading with the island in breach of British law.

4. 🇬🇧 British Empire1939 to 1981

   The Antigua Trades and Labour Union, founded in 1939, and its leader Vere Bird challenged the sugar planters and colonial rule. Self government came in 1967 and independence, won by negotiation rather than war, in 1981.

Today

Antigua and Barbuda now

, but the Arawaks populated the islands when Christopher COLUMBUS landed on his second voyage in 1493. Early Spanish and French settlements were succeeded by an English colony in 1667. Slavery, which provided labor on the sugar plantations on Antigua, was abolished in 1834. The islands became an independent state within the British Commonwealth of Nations in 1981. In 2017, Hurricane Irma passed over the island of Barbuda, devastating the island and forcing the evacuation of the population to Antigua.

Capital

Q36262

Government

parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy; a Commonwealth realm

Head of government

Gaston Browne

Head of state

Charles III

Languages

English, Spanish

Area

440 km²

Through time

Then and now

• Population93,3002023 · 45,500 in 1950
• Life expectancy77.6 years2023 · 58.1 years in 1950
• Living in cities24%2025 · 33% in 1950
• Literacy99%2001 · 83% in 1950
• Military alliancesNone of these2024 · None of these in 1950
• War deathsNone2025

Population: HYDE 3.3, Gapminder and UN WPP. GDP per capita: Maddison Project Database 2023. Urban share: UN WPP. Life expectancy: Riley, HMD, UN WPP. Literacy: OWID historical estimates, World Bank, UNESCO. Military spending: SIPRI. War deaths: UCDP. Political regime: V-Dem, Regimes of the World. All via Our World in Data (CC BY 4.0). Alliances and organization memberships: compiled by Atlas. Satellites in orbit: CelesTrak SATCAT. Modern borders, backcast.

Relations

Close partners and tensions

Summarised from World Bank and Wikipedia data, updated 23 October 2026.