Cuba is the largest island country or territory in the Caribbean, with a total area of almost 111 thousand square kilometers, followed by the Dominican Republic, with nearly 49 thousand square kilometers.

As of January 2024, the Dominican Republic had the largest number of internet users in the Caribbean, with more than ***** million citizens online. Even though the Bahamas ranked seventh with ***** thousand users, it was the Caribbean sovereign state with the highest percentage of people online. Meanwhile, Montserrat was the territory with the smallest online population in the region, since only *** thousand of its inhabitants accessed the internet.

As of January 2024, the Dutch territory of Aruba had the highest internet penetration rate in the Caribbean, with over **** percent of its population online. As of that point, the sovereign state in the region with the highest percentage of citizens online was the Bahamas, with a rate of **** percent. Meanwhile, only around **** percent of Haiti's population were using the internet. Also, during this time, Chile had the highest social media reach within Latin America and the Caribbean.

The Dominican Republic was the Caribbean territory with the largest Facebook audience as of October 2024. At that moment, there were over 8.3 million monthly active users (MAU) accessing this social network in the Dominican Republic. Meanwhile, Haiti ranked second with more than three million Facebook users. The Dominican Republic also had the largest number of Instagram users in the region.

In 2019, Brazil and Mexico were the undisputable passenger traffic hubs in Latin America and the Caribbean, registering each over 90 million air travelers passing through their airports. At a wide margin, Colombia ranked third that year, while the only Caribbean country in the top seven was the Dominican Republic. That same year, the Mexico City International Airport was the best internationally connected airport in Latin America.

As of October 2024, the Dominican Republic was the Caribbean territory with the largest Instagram audience, counting over *** million monthly active users (MAU). In second place was Puerto Rico, with approximately **** million users. When looking at Latin America as a whole, Brazil was the country with the highest number of users of the photo and video sharing social media platform.

Abstract

The RFS in Caribbean was conducted in 13 countries between March and November 2020 and focused on the tourism industry and the restaurant, hotel and tour and transport companies. Due to the COVID-19 crisis, data collection was done both remotely and in-person depending on the restrictions in place and preference of respondent. The countries covered included Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Sint Maarten, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos. The survey in the Caribbean focused on impacts of recent disasters to have affected the region, including Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Maria, Tropical Storm Dorian, etc. (see Table 2 for country and disaster list). The data collection was financed by the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) with the objective of better understanding how natural hazards – large and small, affect the tourism industry in the Caribbean. The data informed the 360° Resilience: A Guide to Prepare the Caribbean for a New Generation of Shocks (Rozenberg, et al. 2021) to make recommendations on how Caribbean countries can invest resources to strengthen resilience in the region.

This project was a collaborative effort between GFDRR and Urban, Disaster Risk Management, Resilience and Land Global Practice (GPURL).

Geographic coverage

Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Sint Maarten, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos.

Analysis unit

• Firm level

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

The sample was drawn to achieve representativeness at the country level as well as the regional level. In the Dominican Republic, sampling was done in a way to also achieve representativeness in 4 provinces in the country. Since there was no comprehensive list of firms operating in the tourism industry readily available to sample from, the firm hired to collect data created a sampling frame from scratch by contacting relevant organizations and websites. To be able to say something about different sectors within the tourism industry, the sampling was stratified by three sectors, including hotels and accommodation, restaurants and bars, and a third sector including rental, taxi and tour companies, attractions and souvenir shops (referred to in this note as hotel, restaurant and tour/transport sectors). The sample selection was then completed in one stage in which firms were selected by using a systematic random sampling method from each stratum.

Once the firm is selected for inclusion in the survey, every effort was made to interview the firm. The survey response rate was low due to the COVID pandemic, and replacements were done. Replacements were drawn from the same stratum. Due to restrictions in some countries, firms were not reachable, even after several attempts and replacements had been done. To compensate for low response rate in some countries, the sample size in other countries was increased. As a result, The Bahamas and Turks and Caicos have lower than expected sample size so caution should be applied when interpreting country level results from these two countries. See Technical Note for more detail on composition of final sample.

The final sample contains a total of 1413 firms across the 13 countries. Dominican Republic has the largest number of observations because the objective of sampling was also to achieve province level representativeness, in addition to country level representativeness, in 4 providences that rely heavily on tourism.

To make the survey estimates representative of the population, it is necessary to apply weights to selected firms during analysis. Regional weights (weight) are applied to statistics representing regional values while country weights (weight_i) are applied to all country level statistics.

Mode of data collection

Computer Assisted Personal Interview [capi]

Research instrument

• Respondent characteristics • Firm characteristics • Clients • Infrastructure dependence and disruptions o Water o Electricity o Communication (phone and internet) o Road and boat • Suppliers • Disaster preparedness • Impacts of recent disasters (see Table 2) • Impacts of disease outbreaks (Zika and COVID-19) • Financial accounts

Cleaning operations

The following data editing was done for anonymization purpose:
• Precise location data, such as GPS coordinates, and subnational administrative divisions (admin 1) were dropped • Identifying and contact information, such as firm name, respondent’s name, supplier names, phone number and email contact, were dropped • Number of fulltime workers above 100 was recoded to “above 100 fulltime workers” to mitigate re-identification of the largest firms. See technical note for more details on anonymization.

In 2024, Brazil and Mexico were expected to be the countries with the largest gross domestic product (GDP) in Latin America and the Caribbean. In that year, Brazil's GDP could reach an estimated value of 2.4 trillion U.S. dollars, whereas Mexico's amounted to almost two trillion U.S. dollars. GDP is the total value of all goods and services produced in a country in a given year. It measures the economic strength of a country and a positive change indicates economic growth.

In 2024, Haiti had a 302 percent level of occupancy in their prison system, being the country with the highest occupancy rate in the Latin America and the Caribbean. It was followed by Guatemala, with almost 300 percent occupancy rate. Among the top ten countries with the most overcrowded national prison system, Panama had the lowest rate, at 163.1 percent. Regarding prison population, El Salvador and Cuba were the Latin American and Caribbean countries that had the largest rates, both with over 500 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants.

In 2023, it was estimated that approximately 664 million people lived in Latin America and the Caribbean. Brazil is the most populated country in the region, with an estimated 216.4 million inhabitants in that year, followed by Mexico with more than 128.5 million.

In 2025, Trinidad and Tobago had the highest press freedom score among countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Caribbean nation scored ***** points on a scale from 1 to 100. Jamaica followed with a score of ***** points. The index presents an overview of the plurality and independence of the media and how safe and free it is for journalists to do their job, with lower scores indicating a worse situation for the press and higher scores a better one. Press freedom laggards in the LATAM region Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, and Honduras had the worst results in the region in 2025 - their scores stood below ** points. Unsurprisingly, due to the political situation in these four countries, journalism there experiences high restrictions imposed by the governments in order to stifle access to information. In one country, private press is actually prohibited by constitution – for that reason Cuba has seen only the lowest press freedom scores year after year. Honduras, one of the lowest-ranked countries on the index, has been noted to see declining press freedom scores since the coup d’etat in 2009. All in all, it comes as no surprise that trust in mass media in Latin America keeps deteriorating. Dangers of being a journalist in Latin America Mexico is considered the most dangerous country for journalist as it ranks high in terms of number of deaths not only in the Latin America region, but also the highest in the world. In 2022, Mexico was found to be the deadliest country for journalists worldwide, with more than ** representatives of the press being killed that year. Although the number dropped to * killings in 2024, the country still regularly ranks among the riskiest for media professionals. Colombia follows in the regional ranking, yet its figures remain significantly lower than those reported in Mexico.

As of February 2025, more than 76 percent of the population of Uruguay was on social media. On the other hand, approximately 22 percent of Haitians used social networking platforms. Among the largest Latin American markets, Brazil had the lowest social media penetration rate at 67.8 percent, just below Colombia and Argentina. Online networking among Chilean young adults intensifies Young adults are the primary audience of social media in Chile. Nearly half of all Facebook users in the South American country were between 18 and 34 years old. The same age group accounted for almost 80 percent of Chilean users of LinkedIn. This generation has also been devoting more of its time to this type of online activity. Obstacles for the expansion of social media in Brazil A handful of issues still set part of Latin America's online population apart from social networks. Despite having the biggest social media audiences in Latin America, countries like Brazil and Mexico still struggled to provide internet access to their populations, thus hindering social media penetration rates.

Reason for Selection Large areas of intact natural habitat are favorable for conservation of numerous species, including reptiles and amphibians, birds, and large mammals. Historically, many Caribbean islands, especially smaller ones, experienced dramatic habitat alteration across much of their land mass from intensive colonial agriculture (such as sugar cane cultivation) and later by urbanization and other anthropogenic modifications (Fitzpatrick et al. 2007, CEPF 2023). As a result, contiguous natural habitat patches are particularly important for supporting native species, restoring native vegetation, and maintaining ecosystem services. This indicator roughly follows the same approach for evaluating patch size used by the intact habitat cores indicator in the continental part of the Southeast Blueprint (Esri 2017), but lowers the highest patch size threshold, recognizing that the maximum patch size on small Caribbean islands is lower than in the continental Southeast and on large islands. Input Data

Southeast Blueprint 2023 subregions: Caribbean
Caribbean island extent and size
Southeast Blueprint 2023 extent
2020 LANDFIRE Existing Vegetation Type (EVT) and Operational Roads (Roads) (v2.2.0) for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands; access the data for U.S. Insular Areas

Mapping Steps

Reclassify the LANDFIRE EVT data into natural and unnatural classes. All classes in “EVT_NAME” that start with “Quarries”, “Developed”, or “Agriculture” are considered unnatural. “Caribbean bush fruit and berries”, which captures sun coffee plantations, is also considered unnatural, while “tropical agroforestry plantation”, which captures shade coffee, is considered natural. Water is classified as “natural”.
Reclassify the Caribbean island extent layer to assign all islands a value of 1 and assign the ocean a value of NoData.
Multiply the reclassified LANDFIRE natural/unnatural layer and island extent data. This makes the ocean NoData, but retains freshwater, smaller salt ponds, and enclosed brackish water areas, as well as terrestrial areas on the islands.
Reclassify primary, secondary, and tertiary roads in the LANDFIRE roads layer as barriers.
Combine the natural/unnatural raster and roads raster to identify natural areas without roads.
Use region group to find the size of patch that each pixel belongs to.
Reclassify based on the final indicator values seen below.
Make a small island mask using the island extent layer for “small” and “medium” islands. Use this mask to include only habitat patches within that mask, excluding large islands, which are captured in a different indicator.
Clip to the Caribbean Blueprint 2023 subregion.
As a final step, clip to the spatial extent of Southeast Blueprint 2023. 

Note: For more details on the mapping steps, code used to create this layer is available in the Southeast Blueprint Data Download under > 6_Code. Final indicator values Indicator values are assigned as follows: 4 = Large patch (>1,000 acres) 3 = Medium patch (>100-1,000 acres) 2 = Small patch (>10-100 acres) 1 = Very small patch (≤10 acres) 0 = Developed or agriculture Known Issues

Some small dirt roads serve as hard boundaries for habitat cores. While this makes sense for some species, this indicator likely underestimates the effective size of the patch for some more mobile animals.
This indicator doesn’t account for variation in habitat condition within the patch.
In Eastern St. Croix, where it’s particularly dry, this indicator can underestimate or overestimate patch size. LANDFIRE has trouble differentiating pasture from natural thornscrub in this area. Pasture isn’t considered natural in this indicator, so any areas of thornscrub misclassified as pasture would underestimate patch size, while areas of pasture classified as thornscrub would overestimate patch size.
Some docks are overprioritized due landcover misclassification. LANDFIRE sometimes misclassifies docks as forests, so they can get included in habitat patches for this indicator.

Disclaimer: Comparing with Older Indicator Versions There are numerous problems with using Southeast Blueprint indicators for change analysis. Please consult Blueprint staff if you would like to do this (email hilary_morris@fws.gov). Literature Cited Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF). 2023. Caribbean Islands – Threats. [https://www.cepf.net/our-work/biodiversity-hotspots/caribbean-islands/threats].

Esri Green Infrastructure Center, Inc. 2017. Esri Green Infrastructure Data Description. [https://www.arcgis.com/sharing/rest/content/items/5561da06127d48a982d6b91929f29666/data].

Fitzpatrick, Scott & Keegan, William. (2007). Human Impacts and Adaptations in the Caribbean Islands: an Historical Ecology Approach. Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 98. 29 - 45. 10.1017/S1755691007000096. [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/earth-and-environmental-science-transactions-of-royal-society-of-edinburgh/article/abs/human-impacts-and-adaptations-in-the-caribbean-islands-an-historical-ecology-approach/68BFF9386CA9BDAD3FB44E5C937AC92F].

LANDFIRE, Earth Resources Observation and Science Center (EROS), U.S. Geological Survey. Published August 1, 2022. LANDFIRE 2020 Existing Vegetation Type (EVT) Puerto Rico US Virgin Islands. LF 2020, raster digital data. Sioux Falls, SD. [https://www.landfire.gov].

LANDFIRE, Earth Resources Observation and Science Center (EROS), U.S. Geological Survey. Published August 1, 2022. LANDFIRE 2020 Operational Roads Puerto Rico US Virgin Islands. LF 2020, raster digital data. Sioux Falls, SD. [https://www.landfire.gov].

As of the first month in 2024, around 94.4 percent of people in the Bahamas were online, making the archipelagic nation the country with the highest percentage of its population using the internet in Latin America and the Caribbean. Meanwhile, more than 90 percent of Chileans were connected to the internet, while this was true for over 83.2 percent of Mexico's population.

Trinidad and Tobago accounted for the largest per capita electricity consumption in 2023 among the Latin American and Caribbean countries. The figure amounted to *** megawatt-hours per inhabitant, double the electricity consumption in Brazil and in Argentina. The average per person electricity consumption in the region was at *** megawatt-hours that year.

In 2023, Puerto Rico and The Bahamas were the states with the highest gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in Latin America and the Caribbean. The average GDP generated per person in the Bahamas amounted to 34,749 U.S. dollars, whereas the average wealth created per capita in Puerto Rico was estimated at around 34,749 U.S. dollars. In that same year, this region's lowest GDP per capita was that of Haiti, at less than 1,693 U.S. dollars per person per year. The largest economies in Latin America GDP is the total value of all goods and services produced in a country in a year. It is an important indicator to measure the economic strength of a country and the average wealth of its population. By far, the two largest economies in the region are Brazil and Mexico, both registering GDPs three times bigger than the third place, Argentina. Nonetheless, they are the two most populated countries by a great margin.
Key economic indicators of Latin America Latin America emerges as an important region in the world economy, as of 2023, around 7.3 percent of the global GDP, a similar share to the Middle East. Nevertheless, the economic development of most of its countries has been heavily affected by other factors, such as corruption, inequality, inflation, or crime and violence. Countries such as Venezuela, Suriname, and Argentina are constantly ranking among the highest inflation rates in the world. While Jamaica, Ecuador, and Haiti rank as some of the most crime-ridden states.

Some of the most populous countries in Latin America were also the nations that register the highest number of murders. Brazil was the country with the largest number of intentional homicides in the region with 44,367 victims. Mexico came in second, with 33,287 homicide victims, followed by Colombia with over 13,000 victims.

In 2019, Aruba and the Cayman Islands had the largest number of air trips per capita in the entire Latin American and Caribbean region, each with averages above nine trips. In Central America, the country with the largest number was Belize, while Chile took the lead in South America. In contrast, Haiti, Venezuela, and Nicaragua recorded the lowest number of air trips per capita that year.

This paper presents new data documenting the cost of salaried labor in 20 Latin American and Caribbean countries. We gather data on the three main costs associated to hiring salaried labor; (i) minimum wages and other monetary benefits, (ii) mandated contributions for social insurance and other benefits and (iii) job security provisions. We present two new indicators. First, we calculate the average non-wage cost of salaried labor (NWC). This indicator answers the following question: for the average wage, what additional share of wages must be satisfied by workers and employers to fulfill all the law mandated non-wage costs of a legal salaried relationship. Our second indicator combines these non-wage costs with the nominal restriction that legal wages cannot be lower than the minimum wage. We calculate the annual dollar value of paying a worker the minimum wage plus all mandated non-wage costs as a share of GDP per worker. This constitutes the minimum cost of salaried labor (MCSL). We highlight seven important facts; (i) The average non-wage cost of salaried labor (NWC) for the region is 49% of wages. (ii) There is a large dispersion across countries like Argentina, Brazil and Peru with costs around 70% of wages and countries like Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Chile with cost less than 40% of wages. (iii) Mandatory contributions are the most important component of the average non-wage cost of salaried labor with 27.3% of wages followed by additional benefits with 13.8% of wages while job security provisions account for another 8.4%. (iv) On average, mandated contributions from employers amount to 17.5% of average annual wages, versus 9.8% of mandated contributions from employees. (v) The minimum cost of salaried labor (MCSL) is on average 39% of GDP per worker. (vi) Variation of the MCSL across countries is even larger. For countries like Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago or the Dominican Republic the MCSL it is below 15% of GDP per worker while the minimum cost of hiring a salaried worker in Honduras is 95% of GDP per capita. (vii) Despite having below average NWC, the five poorest countries in our sample are those presenting the highest MCSL, due to high minimum wages relative to GDP per worker.

Cuba is the Caribbean country with the largest number of endangered animal species on the IUCN Red List. As of 2024, a total of 88 animals species in the Cuba were listed as endangered. The Dominican Republic ranked second, with 76 endangered animal species.