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Updates: 

Rif Winfield sent me a link to the Report  of the Cayman Islands Electoral Boundary Commission for 2003. This prompted me to re-evaluate my sources. As a result, I've completely revised the divisions of the Cayman Islands.

The oldest information I have on the divisions of the Cayman Islands comes from a book called "Cayman Islands Government Economical & Financial Review, 1982". On page 10 it has two tables giving the population by sex and district in 1921 and 1934. The figures in these tables don't add up correctly. There is a good deal of redundancy, so I was able to make a small number of corrections of which I'm reasonably confident. The corrected figures are shown under Population history. Those censuses listed eight districts.

The next evidence comes from a map "drawn by Directorate of Overseas Services [in] 1957". It shows Cayman Brac and Little Cayman undemarcated, and Grand Cayman divided into three districts and seven subdistricts. The subdistricts are not a partition of the districts; that is, several subdistricts lie across the border between two districts. If we take Cayman Brac, Little Cayman, and the seven subdistricts on Grand Cayman as the primary divisions of the Cayman Islands, there is only one change from the 1934 census: Savannah was created, probably from parts of Prospect and Bodden Town.

Next, I have a version of the FIPS 10 list, dated 1972-09-29. It shows divisions of the Cayman Islands, along with the islands they belong to. Cayman Brac Island was supposedly divided into Creek, Spot Bay, Stake Bay, and West End districts; Grand Cayman Island into Eastern, Midland, and Western (the same three districts as shown on the 1957 map); and Little Cayman was coextensive with the district of South Town. This set of districts has been repeated, unchanged, in subsequent FIPS lists and editions of the CIA World Factbook up to the present. The first draft of ISO 3166-2 (1996) copied these districts verbatim from FIPS, but they were dropped as "not relevant" when the authoritative standard came out (1998). There are indeed localities named Creek, Spot Bay, Stake Bay, and West End on Cayman Brac, but I can't find any maps that show them as administrative divisions.

Morris Fisher's book, "Provinces and Provincial Capitals of the World", doesn't show divisions for the Cayman Islands in the 1967 edition, but the 1985 edition shows Cayman Brac divided into Creer (sic), Spot Bay, Stake Bay, and West End; Grand Cayman into Georgetown, Bodden Town, East End, West Bay, and North Side; and Little Cayman into South Town and Jacksons districts.

The 2003 report (see link above) has a number of maps showing electoral constituencies. I don't use electoral divisions on this website, because they are subject to change at every election. However, the names of the electoral constituencies can easily be matched, in most cases, with district names. For example, West Bay district surely corresponds to the four electoral constituencies West Bay Central, West Bay East, West Bay Northwest, and West Bay South. Moreover, Annex 3 at the end of the report has a table titled "Census Population by District". It lists seven districts and their populations in four censuses (1970-1999). The figures are consistent with those I've seen in other sources. (There does seem to be one typo. To make the figures add up correctly, I had to assume that 25,335 is a misprint for 25,355 - an error easily made.) The districts are the same as in the 1921 and 1934 censuses, except that Prospect is missing (probably merged with George Town or Bodden Town, or both). Census enumeration districts often change from one census to the next, but the districts reported on in printed census reports deserve greater credence, especially if they remain stable from year to year.

I concluded that the seven districts listed under Primary subdivisions are probably the best representation of the current status. The eight districts listed by FIPS and the CIA World Factbook were probably never correct, although they've been copied widely. My new best guess at the change history is shown below.

Country overview: 

Short name	CAYMAN ISLANDS
ISO code	KY
FIPS code	CJ
Language	English (en)
Time zone	-5
Capital	George Town

 

The Cayman Islands were a dependency of Jamaica until 1959-07-04, when they became a separate British colony.

Other names of country: 

1. Dutch: Caymaneilanden
2. French: Îles fp Caïmanes
3. German: Kaimaninseln
4. Icelandic: Caymaneyjar
5. Italian: Isole fp Cayman
6. Portuguese: Ilhas Cayman, Ilhas fp Caimão
7. Spanish: Islas fp Caimán
8. Turkish: Cayman Adaları

Origin of name: 

Caimans (crocodilian reptiles) lived there

Primary subdivisions: 

Cayman Islands is divided into seven districts.

District	HASC	Population
Bodden Town	KY.BT	5,764
Cayman Brac	KY.CB	1,822
East End	KY.EE	1,371
George Town	KY.GT	20,626
Little Cayman	KY.SO	115
North Side	KY.NS	1,079
West Bay	KY.WB	8,243
7 districts		39,020
HASC: Hierarchical administrative subdivision codes. Population: 1999-10-10 census.

 

The country's area is 259 square kilometers, or 100 square miles.

Postal codes: 

The Cayman Islands postal service is now using a system of postal codes of the form KYn-nnnn, where each 'n' represents a digit. All mail is delivered to P.O. Boxes.

Territorial extent: 

Cayman Islands consists of three main islands and many tiny islets adjacent to them. The three main islands are Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman. All districts except Cayman Brac and Little Cayman lie primarily on Grand Cayman.

Change history: 

In the censuses of 1921 and 1934, the districts were Bodden Town, East End, George Town, North Side, Prospect, West Bay, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman. The first six constituted Grand Cayman Island; the other two were separate islands.

~1945: Savannah district formed from part of Bodden Town, Prospect, or both.

~1963: Prospect and Savannah districts merged with Bodden Town, George Town, or both.

Population history:

District	1921	1934	1970-04-07	1979-10-08	1989-10-15	1999-10-10
Bodden Town	562	625	976	1,594	3,407	5,764
Cayman Brac	1,213	1,317	1,289	1,603	1,441	1,822
East End	489	437	736	1,083	1,064	1,371
George Town	1,070	1,321	3,812	7,617	12,921	20,626
Little Cayman	95	72	20	74	33	115
North Side	288	340	515	759	857	1,079
Prospect	397	425
West Bay	1,139	1,444	2,720	3,947	5,632	8,243
Totals	5,253	5,981	10,068	16,677	25,355	39,020