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Montserrat
Plymouth · Americas
Overview
The British Overseas Territory of Montserrat is an island in the Caribbean, south-east of Puerto Rico.
This island was a very popular tourist destination until Hurricane Hugo caused widespread damage in 1989 and then in 1995, the island's volcano, Soufrière Hills, became active. A large part of the island was evacuated as a result. There have been on-going volcanic eruptions in the southern half of the island since that time, and that part of the island (the exclusion zone) is now ash-strewn and inaccessible.
The northern half of the island is untouched, as beautiful as it ever was, green and lush; visiting it is perfectly safe. The active volcano (which can be viewed from a good distance) has become a tourist attraction in its own right. Montserrat is still well worth visiting, and the locals go out of their way to be encouraging and welcoming to tourists.
Country facts
Flag
🇲🇸
Capital
Plymouth
Region
Americas
Subregion
Caribbean
Area
102 km²
Landlocked
No
Independent
No
UN member
No
ISO code
MS · MSR
Official name
Montserrat
Coordinates
16.75, -62.20
Wikivoyage guide · 24 sections
▸Introduction869 chars
The British Overseas Territory of Montserrat is an island in the Caribbean, south-east of Puerto Rico.
This island was a very popular tourist destination until Hurricane Hugo caused widespread damage in 1989 and then in 1995, the island's volcano, Soufrière Hills, became active. A large part of the island was evacuated as a result. There have been on-going volcanic eruptions in the southern half of the island since that time, and that part of the island (the exclusion zone) is now ash-strewn and inaccessible.
The northern half of the island is untouched, as beautiful as it ever was, green and lush; visiting it is perfectly safe. The active volcano (which can be viewed from a good distance) has become a tourist attraction in its own right. Montserrat is still well worth visiting, and the locals go out of their way to be encouraging and welcoming to tourists.
▸Understand2,016 chars
Colonisation dates to the 1600s; a gun battery was strategically placed at Carr’s Bay in 1624 to defend the island against approaching ships. Montserrat was initially an agricultural economy; plantations and sugar mills were common in the 1700s with sugar cane juice and molasses processed for local consumption and export. Later, the well-to-do built their estate houses on the island; an elaborate main house was often a landmark because of its size and numerous rooms. In 1857 Joseph Sturge established the Montserrat Company, which cultivated lime fruit for export and sold small plots of land to settlers. Various old churches date to the late 19th or early 20th century. The first air charter flights on the island began in 1956; an eleven-hole golf course (now defunct) opened in the Belham River Valley in response to growth in tourism in the 1960s. A well-equipped recording studio, established by Beatles producer George Martin in 1979, attracted a long list of popular musicians in its one decade of operation. Tiny Montserrat promoted itself as "the way the Caribbean used to be".
External sources
Media
Nearby in Montserrat6
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Antigua and Barbuda
Antigua and Barbuda
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