Port Royal
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How it came to be
Port Royal lies at the tip of the Palisadoes, a spit of land that encloses Kingston Harbour in south-eastern Jamaica. England took it from Spain during the invasion of Jamaica in 1655. The English first called it Cagway but soon renamed it Port Royal, and by 1659 two hundred houses, shops and warehouses stood around the fort.
With a deep, sheltered harbour close to the Spanish shipping lanes, the town grew from a frontier settlement into the key port of the Caribbean in just 37 years. Privateers and pirates used it as a base, and from here Henry Morgan attacked Panama and other Spanish towns. UNESCO calls it the most important English settlement in the Western Hemisphere and a hub of trade in goods and in enslaved Africans.
On 7 June 1692 an earthquake and tsunami struck, and a large part of the town sank under water and sand. Many people died, and its role passed in time to nearby Kingston. The sunken town remains well preserved under layers of sediment. It was inscribed in 2025.
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