Antigua (pronounced An-tee'ga) and Barbuda are located in the middle of the Leeward Islands in the Eastern Caribbean, roughly 17 degrees north of the equator. To the south are the islands of Montserrat and Guadaloupe, and to the north and west are Nevis, St. Kitts, St. Barts, and St. Martin.

Antigua and Barbuda has a total land area of 171 square miles (442 square kilometers) and a population of about 69,000. The island of Antigua covers 108 square miles (280 square kilometers); Barbuda,  62 square miles (161 square kilometers); and Redonda, only ¹/2 square mile (1.3 square kilometers). About 98 percent of the people live on Antigua and 2 percent on Barbuda. Redonda is uninhabited. St. John's (pop. 36,000), on the northwest coast of Antigua, is the country's capital and largest city. The East Caribbean dollar is the country's basic unit of currency. 

Saint John's is the capital city, and commercial center of the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda. St. John's stands at the head of a deep harbor on the northwest coast of the island of Antigua.

The white baroque-style towers of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine dominate the city's skyline. A church was first built on the site of the cathedral in the 1680's, but the present structure dates from the 1840's. The Museum of Antigua and Barbuda occupies the colonial Court House, which was originally constructed in 1750, when the British controlled Antigua and Barbuda. The museum has a variety of objects dating from the island's pre-colonial past to the present.

Tourism is an important industry in St. John's, and many cruise ships visit the city. Nearby V. C. Bird International Airport handles international flights.

Barbuda: has been intimately tied to that of Antigua for centuries. The first early attempts to settle Barbuda (by both the British and French) were failures, and it wasn't until 1666 that the British established a colony strong enough to survive the ravages of both nature and the Caribs. In 1680, four years before he began cultivating sugar on Antigua, Christopher Codrington was granted (with his brother John) a lease to land in Barbuda. 

With subsequent leases that granted them additional rights to the substantial wreckage along Barbuda's reefs, they became the island's preeminent family. For much of the eighteenth century the Codrington land on Barbuda was used to produce food and to supply additional slave labor for the Codrington sugar plantations on Antigua, and so the Barbuda's fortunes rose and fell with those of its larger neighbor. Testament to the influence of the Codringtons remains today, both in the island's place names and in its architectural remains. On Barbuda's highest point (124 feet) are the ruins of the Codrington estate, Highland House, and on the island's south coast still sits the 56-foot high Martello castle and tower, a fortress that was used both for defense and as a vantage from which to spot valuable shipwrecks on the outlying reefs. 

Barbuda Less developed than Antigua, Barbuda has a wilder, more spontaneous beauty. Deserted beaches and a heavily-wooded interior abounding in bird life, wild pigs and fallow deer are the main attractions of this island. A visit to Codrington, the main village, makes an interesting excursion: the settlement is on the edge of a lagoon and the inhabitants rely largely on the sea for their existence.

Redonda: This uninhabited rocky islet, lying about 56km (35 miles) northeast of Antigua, was once an important source of phosphates and guano (the remains of some of the mining buildings can still be seen), but for more than a century its chief claim to fame has been its association with a fairly harmless brand of English eccentricity. In 1865, Redonda was 'claimed' by Matthew Shiell as a kingdom for his son, Philippe. King Philippe It's 'successor', the poet John Gawsworth, appointed many leading literary figures of his day as dukes and duchesses of his kingdom; the lucky peers included JB Priestley, Dylan Thomas and Rebecca West. The current king lives in Sussex, but his subjects are not likely to produce any great works of fiction as they are all either goats, lizards or seabirds. The island is also well known amongst birdwatchers for its small population of burrowing owls, a bird now extinct on Antigua.

The National Coat of Arms