Islam in Saint Vincent & Grenadines: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Saint Vincent & Grenadines

It has a total area of 389 sq km and consists of the largest island of Saint Vincent (344 sq km) with 92% of the population, and fifteen much smaller islands referred to as the Grenadines. Another five of the latter belong to the country of Grenada to the south. The islands of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines were conquered by the British in 1783 and gained their independence from the UK in 1979.

The first Muslims were indenture labor brought by the British from India in 1861. The labor force consisted of 263 individuals, out of which fifteen were Muslim. The number of Muslims decreased to fourteen or 0.03% in 1911, then two in 1921, to one in 1931 and 1946. It then bounced back to sixteen or 0.02% in 1980, to 77 or 0.07% in 2001 and 111 or 0.1% in 2012. The corresponding censuses also show that all Muslims live in the island of St. Vincent and none in the Grenadines.

Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will continue to increase by 0.03 of a percentage point per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to remain in few hundreds throughout this century.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Saint Vincent & Grenadines

The figures below are from the CoMPS historical dataset. Population values are expressed in thousands; 2100 is a modelled projection, not a present-day count.

For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.