Oranjestad, Aruba, Kingdom of the Netherlands

Oranjestad is the capital and largest city of Aruba. Oranjestad is located on the southern coast near the western end of the island country. In the local language, Papiamento, Oranjestad is often referred to simply as "Playa". As of 2015, the population of the capital was around 35,000.

The town was built around Fort Zoutman shortly after it was built in 1796. Initially, the town had no official name, being known only as the town on the Bay of Horses (Paardenbaai in Dutch), a place from which native-bred[citation needed] horses were raised and exported to neighboring Curaçao. The town has ever since been the capital city of the island.
The city is named after the first King William I of the Netherlands. The name was conferred on the city in the 1820s when interest in Aruba increased due to the discovery of (alluvial) gold deposits.

Air Aruba once had its headquarters in Oranjestad. Air Aruba suspended its operations on October 23, 2000.
Tiara Air has had its head office in Oranjestad since 2006, except between 2014 and 2016 when the company suspended services due to the Venezuelan Airline Crisis.

Aruba is an island and a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the southern Caribbean Sea, located about 1,600 kilometres (990 mi) west of the main part of the Lesser Antilles and 29 kilometres (18 mi) north of the coast of Venezuela. It measures 32 kilometres (20 mi) long from its northwestern to its southeastern end and 10 kilometres (6 mi) across at its widest point. Together with Bonaire and Curaçao, Aruba forms a group referred to as the ABC islands. Collectively, Aruba and the other Dutch islands in the Caribbean are often called the Dutch Caribbean.

Aruba is one of the four countries that form the Kingdom of the Netherlands, along with the Netherlands, Curaçao, and Saint Maarten; the citizens of these countries are all Dutch nationals. Aruba has no administrative subdivisions, but, for census purposes, is divided into eight regions. Its capital is Oranjestad.

Unlike much of the Caribbean region, Aruba has a dry climate and an arid, cactus-strewn landscape. This climate has helped tourism as visitors to the island can reliably expect warm, sunny weather. It has a land area of 179 km2 (69.1 sq mi) and is densely populated, with a total of 102,484 inhabitants at the 2010 Census. Current estimates of the population place it at 116,600 (July 2018 est.) It island lies outside Hurricane Alley.

Credit for the data above is given to the following websites:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oranjestad,_Aruba
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aruba

Taken in: Aruba / Madiki (show map)

Taken on: October 24, 2019

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