Great Inagua is the southernmost island in the Bahamas, the third largest, and the most remote. It sits about 55 miles from the eastern tip of Cuba — close enough that the Cuban mountains are visible from the island's lighthouse on clear days. The permanent population is around 1,000 people. The West Indian flamingo population is more than 80,000. The flamingos outnumber the residents by more than 80 to one.
- Nearest airport: Great Inagua Airport, Matthew Town (IGA / MYIG)
- Climate: Tropical dry. The hottest and driest island in the Bahamas. Trade winds provide some relief year round.
Why people visit Inagua
Inagua National Park covers roughly half of Great Inagua, about 183,000 acres of wetland, salt flat, and lake. It is the site of the largest breeding colony of West Indian flamingos in the world. The flamingos feed on brine shrimp in the salt pans. The brine shrimp feed on algae. The algae grows partly on flamingo droppings. The salt production and the flamingos exist in a closed loop, each sustaining the other. Visitors must enter the park with a guide arranged through the Bahamas National Trust. The park has little infrastructure and the interior is reached by rough track.
The bird life extends beyond flamingos. More than 140 species live on or migrate through Inagua, including the Bahama parrot, roseate spoonbill, West Indian whistling duck, and a hummingbird found nowhere else. Lake Windsor, also called Lake Rosa, runs 12 miles through the interior and occupies nearly a quarter of the island. Most of the flamingo activity centers around this lake and the surrounding wetlands.
Diving off Inagua attracts those who know about it. Spanish treasure galleons wrecked on Inaguan reefs over the centuries. The most documented are the Santa Rosa, lost in 1599, and the Infanta, lost in 1788. Both were carrying treasure. Neither has been fully recovered.
What made Inagua
The Lucayan Taíno arrived between 500 and 800 CE, crossing from Hispaniola or Cuba. The Spanish named the island Heneagua, meaning water is to be found there. After the Lucayans were removed, Inagua was largely ignored until the 19th century. Salt was the reason people came. The natural conditions — low rainfall, flat terrain, constant trade winds — make Inagua ideal for solar salt production. The Morton Salt Company has operated on the island since the late 1930s and today produces one million tonnes of sea salt per year, making it the second largest solar saline operation in North America. Matthew Town, the island's only settlement and harbour, is named after George Matthew, a 19th-century Governor of the Bahamas who laid it out during his tenure.
By the early 1950s, hunting, egg raiding, and disturbance by aircraft had reduced the flamingo population on Inagua to around 100 birds. In 1952, ornithologist Robert Porter Allen arrived from the Audubon Society to assess the situation. He found the birds in a courtship ritual on the upper lakes with local guide Sam Nixon, who became the first flamingo warden on the island. The Bahamas National Trust established Inagua National Park in 1965. The flamingo population has since recovered to more than 80,000, one of the most significant wildlife recoveries in the Caribbean.
What you find
Great Inagua is flat and hot, covered in salt flats, wetlands, and low scrub. The Morton Salt facility near Matthew Town produces hills of white sodium chloride visible from a distance. The lighthouse at Matthew Town is one of only three hand-cranked kerosene lighthouses still operating in the Bahamas. The Union Creek Reserve on the northwest shore protects endangered green and hawksbill turtles in a mangrove tidal environment.
Little Inagua sits 8 kilometers to the northeast and is uninhabited. A protective reef extending up to a mile from shore in all directions makes it inaccessible to most boats. The island is a national park. Feral goats and donkeys live there, descendants of livestock left by French settlers generations ago. Endangered sea turtles nest on its beaches. Access is by small boat only, and there is no infrastructure.
