Curaçao (pronounced
['kju?r?sa?] in English;
Dutch Curaçao,
Papiamento Kòrsou) is an
island in the southern part of the
Caribbean Sea off the north coast of
Venezuela. The
island area of Curaçao (Dutch
Eilandgebied Curaçao, Papiamentu
Teritorio Insular di Kòrsou), which includes the main island plus the small, uninhabited island of
Klein Curaçao ("Little Curaçao"), is one of five
island areas of the
Netherlands Antilles, and as such, is a part of the
Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its capital is
Willemstad.
Curaçao is the largest and most populous of the three so-called ABC islands (for Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao) of the Lesser Antilles, specifically the Leeward Antilles. It has a land area of 444 square kilometres (171 square miles). At the 2001 Netherlands Antilles census, the population was 130,627 inhabitants; in 2004 the population was estimated at 133,644. Curaçao lies outside the hurricane belt, but can still occasionally be impacted by hurricanes, such as Hurricane Felix.
The origin of the name Curaçao is still under debate. One explanation is that it is derived from the Portuguese word for heart (coração), referring to the island as a centre in trade, or it could mean heal (cura) for the plants that grow on the island. Spanish traders took the name over as Curaçao, which was followed by the Dutch. Another explanation is that Curaçao was the name the indigenous peoples of Curaçao had used to label themselves (Joubert and Baart, 1994). This theory is supported by early Spanish accounts, which refer to the indigenous peoples as "Indios Curaçaos".
Whatever the origin of the name, after 1525 the island appeared on Spanish maps as "Curaçote," "Curasaote," and "Curasaore." By the seventeenth century the island was generally known on all maps as "Curaçao" or "Curazao".
