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Caribbean Islands

Aruba


Aruba is a tropic Caribbean island, part of the Leeward Antilles, located north of the coast of Venezuela. Aruba is one of four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, its citizens are all Dutch nationals and thus EU citizens. It has its own currency Aruban florin (AWG). Aruba to the west, Bonaire to the east, and Curaçao in the middle are sometimes called the ABC group. It is 30 km long and 8 km wide, which means about 184 km². The Capital is Oranjestad, the island is inhabited by 120.000 people. The island is multicultural, which means official languages are Dutch, English, Spanish and the native Papiamento.

The climate is arid, but very pleasant, around 28 °C all years and mostly dry, the island is not in the hurricane belt. Because of the climate, drinking water is produced by the second-largest desalination plant of the World.

The geology is rather interesting. A volcanic core is surrounded by a rim of limestone, which was deposited when the island was deeper in the sea. It is primarily reef limestone with sedimentary limestone and breccias in between. There are numerous caves on the island, most of them in the limestone belt, some ten meters above sea level and along the coasts. Other caves were formed by tectonic forces in not soluble rocks. Natural bridges and blow holes are found along the coast in all kinds of rock.



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