Saba is an island with a mountain that happens to be an island. The whole of it — barely 13 square kilometres — is the steep flank of a single volcano, Mount Scenery, rising straight out of the Caribbean Sea in the northern Lesser Antilles. At 870 metres its summit is the highest point in the entire Kingdom of the Netherlands, of which Saba is the smallest special municipality, and the peak is technically the region's northernmost active volcano, though it has lain dormant for roughly 400 years. With around 2,150 residents, Saba is the smallest territory by permanent population in the Americas, capital is called The Bottom, a name that leaves visitors climbing steadily uphill from the sea only to arrive at a place named for the basin it sits in.
That same volcanic steepness explains why Saba never became a typical Caribbean resort: the island has almost no natural beaches, just sheer cliffs dropping into deep water. What it lost in sunbathers it gained in everything else. The waters around it form a protected marine park with dozens of dive sites and some of the healthiest reefs in the region, while the slopes above climb through rainforest into a misty cloud forest at the summit, threaded with hiking trails. Sabans call their home "The Unspoiled Queen," and protect it accordingly. Even arriving is an event: planes land at Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport, which has the shortest commercial runway in the world, carved onto a flat shelf of lava between the cliffs and the sea.
- Capital - The Bottom
- Language - English (Dutch official)
- Status - Special municipality of the Netherlands (Caribbean Netherlands / BES)
- Highest point - Mount Scenery, 870 m — highest in the Kingdom of the Netherlands