What On Earth Is Bermuda?

Found across the Western North Atlantic is one of the most mysterious and notorious stretches of water on the planet. It's a place that isn't geographically official, yet it is known around the world, especially by pilots and sailors. It is no other than the Devil's Triangle, or as it's more commonly known, the Bermuda Triangle. I remember watching documentaries and YouTube videos about this stretch of water as a kid and being unbelievably terrified of it. Some 50 ships and 20 planes have gone missing in this particular region, for seemingly unknown reasons. Some theories blame their disappearance on rogue waves, some on giant methane bubbles, some claim it's aliens or a portal to a different universe, or most likely it's because the compass in this region does not point towards the magnetic north, but towards the true north. This strange phenomenon leads to confusion in navigation, which results in ships and planes getting lost. The triangle stretches from Florida to Puerto Rico to Bermuda, hence the name. Now, most people are familiar with the Bermuda Triangle, but what about Bermuda itself? It's an extremely interesting and unique place for many different reasons. Most people probably only know it as a super rich tax haven island as well as its infamous connection to the Bermuda Triangle, but that's probably it. So in this video, we're going to take a deeper dive into this tiny but very interesting territory. So found quite literally in the middle of nowhere, you'll find the island territory of Bermuda. The closest landmass to the territory is Cape Hatteras in North Carolina, some nearly 1,000km away. Some 1,200km southwest of Bermuda is where you'll run into the closest Caribbean island. Now, even though Bermuda is kind of close to the Caribbean, it is not classed as a Caribbean island. So is Bermuda a country? If not, who owns it? Well, if you take a look at its flag, you'll instantly know who owns it. It is of course the Brits. However, I say owns it loosely, as the island is self-governing. The people and government rule themselves, but the UK takes care of its external affairs, security and defence. The territory is absolutely tiny. It covers an area of just 54km2, which if its own country, would rank it as the 5th smallest on Earth. It's over double the size of Tuvalu, but just smaller than San Marino. The territory is an archipelago consisting of around 138 islands, with 7 of them being classed as its main islands. The territory has a very interesting shape. It kind of looks like a fishing hook, right? So across this 54km2, there are 64,000 people who call Bermuda home. This gives us a population density of around 1,200 people per km2, which makes it a very densely populated territory. In fact, the 12th most densely populated territory on the planet. But what makes this so special and famous is its enormous wealth. According to the World Bank and UN, Bermuda is the 4th richest place on Earth in terms of GDP per capita, at around 120,000 US dollars. The territory is especially attractive for people with money, as the people and companies of the island do not pay tax. Hence why, even though the island is so small, there are so many large companies and corporations based there, especially those in insurance and finance. Bermuda being home to so many rich people, as well as it having to import literally everything across to the middle of nowhere, has therefore led to the island gaining a notorious title in many rankings and indexes, as the most expensive place in the world to live. The capital city of the island is Hamilton, which is known to be especially expensive. Now, speaking of money, what currency do you think is used on the island? Maybe the British Pound or US Dollars? Well, no, the territory actually has its own currency, the Bermuda Dollar, which is pegged to the US Dollar 1 to 1. However, although the US Dollar is not an official currency, it is used interchangeably on the island. Although incredibly small both in terms of size and population, its economy is impressively large. So at the time of making this video, its GDP is around 7.5 billion US Dollars, ranking the territory around the 148th in the world. That's a larger economy than the likes of Maldives, Fiji or Barbados. With the territory being owned by the Brits, English is of course the official language here, with the accents of the Bermudians apparently having an interesting twang to it. Due to geographical and historical influences, it is described to sound somewhere in between British, American and West Indian. But let's just take it back a minute. How did the Brits end up owning this random island in the middle of nowhere? I'll summarise it nicely. So in 1502, the islands were first discovered by the Spanish. 107 years later, English settlers accidentally arrived on the island after being hit by a storm. By 1612, the Virginia Company had began to settle on the archipelago. The Virginia Company was a trading company chartered by the king to colonise the east coast of America. The company created the capital and town of New London, which was later renamed to St George's as it's still named today. It is the oldest surviving English town in what is known as the New World, aka South, Central and North America. Ever since, the archipelago has remained as a British territory. Its position is strategically beneficial to the Brits. However, it almost ended in 1995, as a referendum took place to seek independence, which didn't end up passing. Skip forward to current times, and the island is one of the richest, most prosperous and developed places on earth. In the Human Development Index, it scores 0.981, which is higher than Switzerland, who ranks first in the official index. Now, the architecture of the island gives it a very unique charm. The style is known as UK Colonial, where a lot of the buildings are of British colonial design and aesthetic, but at the same time you have a lot of very colourful buildings, especially with the use of pastel colours. But then, the territory is very hot and sees huge hurricanes, so has to build accordingly, which gives the island a blend of vibrant, practical and colonial building styles. If any of you have 7.5 million pounds lying around, this is the type house you can get with your money. So let's now move on to the geography of the island. So as previously mentioned, it is rather small and found pretty far away from any other landmass. The island, as you'd expect, is of tropical nature, with crystal clear blue waters, white sand and palm trees. One thing the island is particularly known for is its pink sand beaches, which get their colour from the result of coral and shells being pulverised together. The island is very flat overall. Its elevation is just 38m and its highest point just 79m, which is about the height of the average onshore wind turbine. According to the Koppen climate classification, Bermuda lies in the transition zone between tropical rainforest and humid subtropical climate. Its summers are hot and humid, while its winters are mild to semi-warm. So its climate sounds very desirable and liveable. Well, that's if you don't take into account the hurricanes it sometimes receives. The island unfortunately finds itself in what is known as the Hurricane Belt, an area prone to storms and hurricanes, usually from June to November. In 2003, the most powerful of them all battered Bermuda. The hurricane was classed as Level 3 and saw wind speeds of up to 150mph. It killed 4 people and caused 300 million US dollars worth of damage. So there we have it, the territory of Bermuda explained in a nutshell. Now if you were super rich, is this somewhere you'd like to live? Or is it just too far away from the rest of the world? Like and subscribe for more content like this and as always, thank you very much for watching.