The twin-island republic in the southern Caribbean gave the world the steelpan and a carnival copied from London to Toronto — two days of masquerade, calypso and soca before Lent, with roots in French balls and the Canboulay of freed Africans.
Photo: Idobi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Carnival is the heart of this atlas’s entry for Trinidad and Tobago. Fetes and competitions fill the weeks beforehand, and the street celebration takes the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, so the dates move with Easter.
The carnival has spread far beyond the islands: carnivals in the Trinidad style are now held elsewhere in the Caribbean and in cities abroad, among them London’s Notting Hill Carnival, Toronto’s Caribana and New York’s Labor Day Carnival.
On the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, Trinidad and Tobago takes to the streets — J’ouvert at daybreak in mud, oil and paint, then bands of masqueraders in colourful costumes, steelpan and soca — in a carnival born of French balls and the Canboulay of freed Africans.
February 8 – 9, 2027Calculated