Freeport

Grand Bahama was one of the least developed islands of the Bahamas until the mid-20th century, with a population of around 500. The Lucayans had called it Bahama, and after the Spanish enslaved them the island stayed almost empty for centuries; during American Prohibition West End served as a waystation for liquor bound for the United States, and in the late 1940s a British holiday company built the island's first major resort and first commercial airport there.

Freeport began in 1955, when the Virginian financier Wallace Groves, who had lumber interests on the island, was granted 50,000 acres of pineyard, swamp and scrub with a mandate to develop it. Under the Hawksbill Creek Agreement of August 1955 the Grand Bahama Port Authority runs the free trade zone, and businesses there were promised freedom from taxes, first to 1980 and later to 2054. Settlements such as Smith's Point, Pinder's Point and Lewis Yard grew around the planned city, and the resort suburb of Lucaya rose along the south shore.

Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne in 2004 began a long run of setbacks: recovery took nearly a decade, and the International Bazaar and a neighbouring resort and casino closed. Matthew struck in 2016, and in early September 2019 Hurricane Dorian, a Category 5 storm, stalled over Grand Bahama, raising storm surges of 12 to 18 feet, killing eight people on the island and damaging or destroying nearly half its homes. In 2024 the government and the Port Authority were in dispute over money the government said the authority owed.

Freeport is a young city without the centuries of history of Nassau, and much of its older Bahamian life survives in the settlements around it, such as Smith's Point, Pinder's Point and Eight Mile Rock. Church congregations, family gatherings and the weekly fish fry at Taino Beach are the social anchors.

The Lucayans are remembered in the names of Lucaya and Lucayan National Park, and evidence of these pre-Columbian inhabitants has been found on the island. Lucaya itself has a resort culture of its own: Count Basie Square is the centre of nights out, and Port Lucaya is a popular spring-break destination. Water is central to local life, from fishing and boating to diving — Lucaya is home to one of the first destination dive operations in the world.

Freeport and Lucaya together form one city, which is often promoted as Freeport/Lucaya and is the second largest city in the Bahamas.

Freeport is the second most populous city in the Bahamas, and with Lucaya it forms the country's second largest urban area. The economy rests on the free trade zone, the container port and shipping, and tourism, which draws more than a million visitors a year but has shrunk since the hurricanes of 2004. Several cruise ships call each week, and most hotels are in Lucaya along the south shore.

The city was built around the car, with wide roads and low-density subdivisions spread across former pine forest; older settlements such as Eight Mile Rock, stretched along eight miles of rocky shore, lie to the west. Daily life has been shaped by repeated hurricanes: Dorian destroyed up to 13,000 homes on the island and almost wrecked the airport, which the government bought in 2021 as part of the recovery. The long relationship between the Port Authority and the national government remains a matter of public debate.

Freeport eats like the rest of the Bahamas, with seafood at the centre: conch salad, cracked conch and conch fritters, fried and grilled fish, and spiny lobster, served with peas 'n' rice, baked macaroni and coleslaw.

The fish fry is the city's great food ritual. The best known is held every Wednesday evening on Taino Beach, where stalls fry fish and conch to order and residents and visitors stay late into the evening for the music. Port Lucaya Marketplace has many international restaurants for visitors, while everyday Bahamian cooking is found in the takeaways and small restaurants of downtown and the older settlements.

Breakfasts bring souse, a lime-and-pepper broth, with johnnycake, and guava duff, a boiled pudding with guava folded into the dough and served with a sauce, is the classic dessert. Kalik and Sands beer and Bahamian rum are the standard drinks, and rum cocktails are a fixture of Lucaya's bars.