Caribbean Islands



Netherlands Antilles - Nederlandse Antillen

Aruba is a tropic Caribbean island, part of the Netherlands Antilles, located north of the coast of Venezuela. It is 30km long and 8km wide, which means about 184km². The Capital is Oranjestad, the island is inhabited by 120.000 people. The island is muliticultural, which means official languages are Dutch, English, Spanish and the native Papiamento.

The climate is very pleasant, around 28°C all years and mostly dry. The island is not in the hurricane belt. Because of the low rain, drinking water is produced by the second largest desalination plant of the World.

The geology is rather interesting. A volcanic core is surrounded by a rim of limestone, which was deposited when the island was deeper in the sea. It is primarly reef limestone with sedimentary limestone and brekkzias inbetween. There are numerous caves on the island, most of them in the limestone belt some ten meters above sea level and along the coasts. Other caves were formed by tectonic forces in not soluble rocks. Natural bridges and blow holes are found along the coast in all kinds of rock.