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CultureGrams can help you broaden your students' understanding of the world and its peoples. The World Edition includes 190+ country profiles, written for junior high students and older. CultureGrams also has a Kids Edition, Provinces Edition, and a States Edition, geared for upper elementary students. These editions include kid-friendly profiles of 70+ countries, all 50 states (including Washington, D.C.), and the Canadian provinces.
CultureGrams goes beyond mere facts and figures to deliver an insider's perspective on daily life and culture, including the history, customs, and lifestyles of the world's people.
Country: Dominica
- Capital: Roseau
- Population: 68,910 (rank=197)
- Area, sq. mi.: 290 (rank=182)
- Area, sq. km.: 750
- Human Dev. Index rank: 68 of 177 countries
- Adjusted for women: NA
- Real GDP per capita: $5,643
- Adult literacy rate: 88%
- Infant mortality rate: 13 per 1,000 births
- Life expectancy: 72 (male); 78 (female)
Land and Climate
Nicknamed the Nature Island of the Caribbean, Dominica has few easily accessible beaches. Instead, it is known for its large waterfalls and rugged mountains, the highest of which, Mount Diablotin, reaches an elevation of 4,747 feet (1,447 meters). Because the interior of the island is hard to access and contains little agricultural land, Dominica is far less developed than other Eastern Caribbean islands. It has retained a large portion of its virgin subtropical forests, which house hundreds of plant and bird species. It is said that Dominica has 365 rivers, one for each day of the year.
Family
Family structure is commonly matriarchal, as a large number of households are headed by single mothers--most unwed, some divorced. Though it is not uncommon for men to have outside partners while in a relationship, this practice is becoming increasingly unacceptable. Grandmothers sometimes care for children whose parents emigrate abroad in order to find better jobs and send money home. Sometimes bonds between neighbors are so close that they function like a family; neighbors might share meals and watch each other's children, for example. Much of Dominica's elderly population lives with or near relatives who care for them.
Housing
People usually own their homes, which may have been passed down through many generations. Though houses usually start out with two bedrooms, as families grow in size and income they typically add on one or two more. Urban dwellings are equipped with modern conveniences, but few rural homes have indoor bathrooms. Houses in rural, mountainous areas are often built on reinforced concrete stilts to forgo the expense of a foundation. While the Kalinago still erect traditional circular, thatch-roofed buildings, most live in modern structures. Land in the Carib Territory is not owned by individual families.
Economy
Agriculture still accounts for the majority of Dominica's GDP. The amount of produce grown on the island far outweighs its consumption and sale and therefore goes to waste or is used as fertilizer. However, Dominica's competitiveness on the world market is hindered by its small size and an environmental ban on using pesticides on agricultural land. Bananas, the country's main export, are usually grown on small tracts of land worked by families. Recently Dominica's banana industry--given preferential trade treatment by Britain since the 1950s--has been struggling since the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled in 2005 against a European Union (EU) banana quota system that protected Caribbean bananas from competition with large-scale Latin American growers.
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