St. Lucia's population of approximately 174,000 lives on a small, mountainous island that extends 27 miles from north to south and 14 miles east to west at its widest point. There are about equal numbers of urban and rural residents, with more than a third of the people, some 55,000, living in the capital and largest city, Castries. Vieux Fort, Soufrière and Gros Islet are the other significant towns.
Historically, St. Lucia has had both a high emigration rate and, despite this, a high rate of population growth. But during the last several years, annual population growth has eased from about 1.6 percent to around 1.29 percent.
The people are predominantly of African descent, together with a significant number of mulattoes (mixed African and European descent) and small East Indian and European minorities.
Cultural Legacy
The island was one of the most fought-over sites in the Caribbean during the era of European colonialism, but prior to the defeat of the Napoleonic empire the dominant influence was French.
Reflecting this heritage, almost 90 percent of St. Lucians are Roman Catholics, and although the official language is English, the people generally speak a heavily French-inflected patois. Various forms of patois are prevalent throughout the Caribbean, with the particular version varying from island to island. A thumbnail definition of the term patois is a linguistic formulation that blends and amalgamates multiple languages into something of a local dialect. In the case of St. Lucia, French, English and West African elements can all be discerned.
Socio-Economic Considerations
St. Lucia has a heavily agricultural economy, in which bananas supplanted sugar cane as the main crop in the early 1960s. In recent years, mostly as a result of changing trade regimes, the banana industry has declined and agricultural diversification efforts are taking place. There is also a significant fishing sector. But, as in much of the Caribbean, increasingly the main emphasis of economic development is on tourism. St. Lucia does not yet have nearly as extensive and commercialized a tourist infrastructure as some of the most popular Caribbean vacation islands, and this very fact can add to its charm for visitors.
Education
St. Lucia has public and parochial school systems, and education is compulsory until age 15. The literacy rate is around 90 percent, slightly below the average for Caribbean countries.
The norm for the general population is primary school completion together with some, but less than complete, secondary education. Less than a third of the population have a full secondary education credential or higher. However, school attendance rates for the relevant age groups have recently moved substantially closer to universal, and it can be expected that St. Lucia's educational attainment data will show significant improvement in the coming years.
Health and Welfare
In terms of health, the estimated infant mortality rate is 12.81 deaths for every 1,000 live births. The average life expectancy is 74 years of age, according to recent estimates.
About 4.5 percent of GDP is spent on education in this country; about 8.1 percent of GDP is spent on health expenditures. Access to water and sanitation is regarded as very good although there may be some limits in certain rural areas.
Human Development
Another quality-of-life indicator that reflects on St. Lucia is the Human Development Index (HDI), compiled annually since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is a composite of several indicators, which measure a country's achievements in three main arenas of human development: longevity, knowledge and education, as well as economic standard of living. In a recent ranking of 177 countries, the HDI placed St. Lucia in the medium human development category, at 72nd place. The country was omitted from the most recent HDI ranking.
Note: Although the concept of human development is complicated and cannot be properly captured by values and indices, the HDI, which is calculated and updated annually, offers a wide-ranging assessment of human development in certain countries, not based solely upon traditional economic and financial indicators.