Bermuda is an Caribbean island alone in the North Atlantic, far north of the Caribbean Sea, with the coast of the United States as its nearest neighbour and open ocean in every other direction. It is often grouped with the Caribbean, and almost as often corrected for it. It belongs in that company for reasons that have nothing to do with the map.
The first is the water itself. The Gulf Stream, the warm current that rises out of the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, curves north and washes past Bermuda, carrying tropical warmth to a latitude that has no business being subtropical. That single current is why Bermuda holds the most northerly coral reefs on Earth and the northernmost mangroves in the Atlantic. The Caribbean does not touch Bermuda, but the same water that warms the Caribbean does.
The second is wealth. Bermuda belongs to the same family of small, low-tax island jurisdictions as the glamorous corners of the Caribbean — a self-governing British Overseas Territory, not an independent country, but one that runs its own affairs while Britain keeps responsibility for defence and foreign relations. With no personal income tax and an economy built on offshore insurance and reinsurance, it is among the wealthiest places on Earth measured per person. That wealth comes at a price: almost everything is imported, and the cost of living is among the highest anywhere.
Physically, it is tiny — around 54 square kilometres, hundreds of islands in total, of which about eight are linked by bridges and hold nearly all the population. Together they curve into the shape of a fish-hook, and they are so crowded that Bermuda ranks among the most densely populated territories in the world. The capital, Hamilton, is one of the smallest capital cities anywhere, and the local currency, the Bermudian dollar, is pegged one-to-one to the US dollar.
And then there is the name. For most people, "Bermuda" calls up not finance or coral but the Bermuda Triangle — the stretch of ocean blamed in popular legend for lost ships and aircraft. The myth has no basis in the territory's geography, but it is, fairly enough, the thing Bermuda is best known for.
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