Section 4 of 5
The island that does not fit
Gas, pitch, and a different demography.
An economy built on hydrocarbons
Trinidad and Tobago's economy runs on natural gas and petrochemicals, which makes it structurally unlike every island north of it.
A natural asphalt deposit that has been mined for centuries
La Brea's Pitch Lake is a natural asphalt seep that has been commercially worked since the colonial period and still is.
A civic event with a documented lineage
Trinidad Carnival's forms — calypso, steelpan, mas — have traceable origins in emancipation-era practice rather than in tourism.