Demographics and Architecture
| Year | City proper |
Note |
|---|---|---|
| 1901 | 54,100 | N/A |
| 1946 | 92,793 | Annexation of St. James (1938) |
| 1960 | 93,954 | N/A |
| 1970 | 73,950 | N/A |
| 1988 | 59,200 | N/A |
| 2000 | 49,031 | N/A |
| Administrative Corporation | Population |
|---|---|
| Port of Spain | 49,031 |
| Diego Martin | 105,720 |
| San Juan/Laventille | 157,295 |
| Tunapuna/Piarco | 203,975 |
| Arima | 32,278 |
| Total | 548,299 |
| Source: 2000 Census |
Port of Spain has a population of 23,415 males and 25,616 females, with 5,694 businesses and is home to 14,487 households with an average size of 3.18 according to the 2000 census.
Port of Spain's diverse population reflects two centuries of immigration and this shows in the architecture of its buildings. The city features French colonial 'ginger bread' style houses, buildings with New Orleans reminiscent wrought-iron railings and wooden fretwork set beside modern high-rise towers and strip malls with a mish-mash of gothic-style cathedrals, mosques and Hindu temples testifying to the diversity of cultures. It is home to African, Indian, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Venezuelan, Chinese and Syrian immigrants, most of them arriving since the Spanish Cedula of Population of 1783. Prominent Port of Spain citizens are Sir Vidiadhar Naipaul (Nobel Prize Literature 2001), Derek Walcott (Nobel Prize Literature 1992) and former West Indies cricketer Brian Lara.
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“For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument, that makes a poem,—a thought so passionate and alive, that, like the spirit of a plant or an animal, it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)