Bermuda is a 21 square mile (56 square kilometers) in total land area cluster of mostly-interconnected small islands in the north west Atlantic Ocean.
One of the nine smallest places in the world in total land area, compared to the USA’s 9.629 million square kilometers. Bermuda has 6 main islands and 120 others. There are nine parishes (counties), each 2.3055 square miles (3.68 square kilometers). It has about 65,000 residents and about 500,000 visitors annually, mostly from cruise ships.
Bermuda is located about 600 miles due east of the nearest mainland, the USA’s North Carolina. It is not in the Caribbean but 900 miles north of it. There are no regular airline or shipping services between the Caribbean and Bermuda, only with the USA, Canada and Britain. It is Britain’s oldest British Overseas Territory, self-governing, with its own laws including those on citizenship, commerce, customs duties, employment, finance, health, insurance, investments, hospitalization, immigration, taxation, trade, welfare, etc. It is not part of the European Community.Despite its small size it is an important offshore business jurisdiction, the registered corporate home of many multinational business entities, particularly for insurance and reinsurance companies.
The World Bank – see http://data.worldbank.org/country/bermuda – rates it as one of the top four jurisdictions in the world in Gross National Income per capita. The cost of living is also very high.
