 The Netherlands Antilles is part of the kingdom of the Netherlands. They consist of five islands in the Caribbean Sea. The largest island is Curacao which also has the capital, Willemstad. From the 15th century the islands were under the rule of various Europeans countries – Spain had the biggest influence at first, then after 1634 it was the Netherlands. That's why the official language is Dutch. Most of inhabitants speak papiament, which is a language created by the island's slaves, based on Spanish and Portuguese.
The inhabitants have very mixed origins. The original islanders were almost completely exterminated and most of today's inhabitants are descendants of slaves brought from Africa, or of colonists, or of Brazilians and more recently of emigrants who came at the beginning of the 20th century (Lebanese, Indians, Chinese and later on from Surinam).
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