Top 10 Largest Cities or Towns of Curacao

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1) Willemstad
2) Sint Michiel Liber
3) Barber
4) Dorp Soto
5) Newport
6) Sabana Westpunt
7) Dorp Sint Willibrordus
8) Lagun
9) Tera Kora
10) Westpunt

Curaçao is an island in the southern Caribbean Sea, off the Venezuelan coast, that forms part of the Dutch Caribbean. The Country of Curaçao (Dutch: Land Curaçao; Papiamento: Pais Kòrsou), which includes the main island and the small, uninhabited island of Klein Curaçao ("Little Curaçao"), is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of over 150,000 on an area of 444 km2 (171 sq mi) and its capital is Willemstad.

Prior to 10 October 2010, when the Netherlands Antilles was dissolved, Curaçao was administered as the Island Territory of Curaçao (Dutch: Eilandgebied Curaçao, Papiamentu: Teritorio Insular di Kòrsou), one of five island territories of the former Netherlands Antilles.

One explanation for the origin of the name Curaçao is that it is derived from the Portuguese word for heart (coração), referring to the island as a centre in trade. Spanish traders kept the name as Curazao, which was followed by the Dutch. Another explanation is that Curaçao was the name the Arawak people had used to identify themselves.

On a map created by Hieronymus Cock in 1562 in Antwerp, the island was referred to as Qúracao.

Four British Royal Navy ships have been named after the Island between 1809 and 1942. All have used the unusual spelling HMS Curacoa. The last of these was a C-class light cruiser of 1917.

The name "Curaçao" has become associated with a shade of blue, because of the deep-blue version of the liqueur named Curaçao (also known as Blue Curaçao).

The original inhabitants of Curaçao were Arawak peoples. Their ancestors had migrated to the island from the mainland of South America, likely hundreds of years before European encounter.

The first Europeans recorded as seeing the island were members of a Spanish expedition under the leadership of Alonso de Ojeda in 1499. The Spaniards enslaved most of the Arawak as their labor force. They sometimes forcibly relocated the survivors to other colonies where workers were needed. In 1634, after the Netherlands achieved independence from Spain, Dutch colonists started to occupy the island. European powers were trying to get bases in the Caribbean.

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