Bermuda is a group of low-forming islands (181, the largest being Main Island) located in the North Atlantic Ocean, at about 1,030km from Cape Hatteras (North Carolina), near the western edge of the Sargasso Sea. It is the northernmost point of the so-called Bermuda Triangle, a region of sea in which, according to legend, a number of aircraft and surface vessels have disappeared under supposedly unexplained or mysterious circumstances. The archipelago is formed by high points on the rim of the caldera of a submarine volcano. The top of the seamount has gone through periods of complete submergence, during which its limestone cap was formed by marine organisms, and during the Ice Ages the entire caldera was above sea level. Bermuda has a humid subtropical climate, on the border of tropical climate, and is within the hurricane belt, the only source of fresh water being rainfall. Its economy is based on offshore insurance and reinsurance, and tourism. Bermuda's pink sand beaches and clear, cerulean blue ocean waters are popular with tourists.
Bermuda was discovered in 1503 by Spanish explorer Juan de Bermúdez, after whom the islands are named. He claimed the apparently uninhabited islands for the Spanish Empire. In 1609, the English Virginia Company, which had established Virginia and Jamestown on the North American continent two years earlier, established a settlement. The islands became a British colony following the 1707 unification of the parliaments of Scotland and England, which created the Kingdom of Great Britain. Its first capital, St. George's (originally called New London), was established in 1612 and is the oldest continuously inhabited English town in the New World. At the begining of the American War of Independence, Bermuda supported the rebels, but the economic realities caused Bermudians to seize opportunities; they turned to privateering against the Americans. Following the war, with the buildup of Naval and military forces in Bermuda, the primary leg of the Bermudian economy became defence infrastructure. Even after tourism began later in the 19th century, Bermuda remained, in the eyes of London, a base more than a colony.
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