Curaçao
Discover Curaçao
Introduction
Curaçao is an island country of 444 square kilometres and nearly 156,000 people in the southern Caribbean off Venezuela, a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands since 10 October 2010 and, with Aruba and Bonaire, one of the ABC islands. Its capital, Willemstad, holds around nine in ten of its people in four historic quarters -- Punda and Otrobanda facing each other across the Sint Anna Bay, Scharloo and Pietermaai on the Waaigat -- whose architecture and harbour entry are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with the oldest surviving synagogue in the Americas and a pontoon bridge that swings open for ships. Papiamentu, a Portuguese-based creole, is the language 78 per cent speak at home; Dutch, Papiamentu and English are official, Dutch alone for law and administration, and Spanish is heard everywhere.
Alonso de Ojeda reached the island on 26 July 1499 and found some 2,000 Caquetíos, almost all of whom the Spanish had enslaved and shipped to Hispaniola by 1515; the Dutch West India Company took it in 1634, Peter Stuyvesant governed it in the 1640s, and it became a hub of the Atlantic slave trade until abolition in 1863, with Tula's revolt of 1795 the island's defining memory. Oil from Venezuela's Maracaibo basin brought Shell's refinery in 1914, autonomy came in 1954, a workers' revolt in 1969, and the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles in 2010 left Curaçao a country within the Kingdom but outside the European Union's territory.
For the visitor it is Willemstad's painted waterfront and the Queen Emma bridge; the Christoffel park at the island's north-west end, 1,860 hectares around the highest hill and three old plantations, with its cacti, orchids and white-tailed deer; the coral limestone Hato caves; the beaches of the west coast; and Klein Curaçao, an uninhabited islet ten kilometres off the south-east with a lighthouse and some of the best diving. The island sits outside the main hurricane track, uses a new Caribbean guilder pegged to the US dollar, requires a digital immigration card filed before travel, and answers 911, 912 and 913 for police, ambulance and coastguard.
Do I need anything before I fly?
Yes: the Digital Immigration Card, completed online within seven days of departure on the official portal; without the e-mailed confirmation you will not clear immigration. No visa for up to 90 days.
What currency?
The Caribbean guilder, new since March 2025 and pegged at 1.79 to the US dollar, which is widely accepted.
Is it in the hurricane zone?
Barely: no hurricane has made landfall on record, though the season runs June to November and tropical storms happen.
What are the emergency numbers?
911 police and fire, 912 ambulance, 913 coastguard.
How much is the national park?
US$15 for adults and US$2 for children aged 6 to 12; open from 6 am, with the mountain climb closed to anyone starting after 10 am.
Do the taxis have meters?
No. They carry TX plates and government flat rates by destination; agree the fare before you get in.