The eight main islands and more than 299 smaller islands which constitute Turks and Caicos Islands have a total land area of 616.3 square kilometres, consisting primarily of low, flat limestone with extensive marshes and mangrove swamps and 332 square kilometres of beach front. Around the early 1980's, Turks and Caicos started to become a tourist destination, quickly becoming one the world's most premier beach destinations, due to their perfect white-sand beaches and calm turquoise waters. If in 1996 only about 87,000 tourists visited these islands, in 2010 a total of 245 cruise ships arrived at the Grand Turk Cruise Terminal, carrying a total of 617,863 visitors.
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