Port of Spain had a local campus enrollment of 15,571 in academic year 2007/2008. The University of Trinidad and Tobago has several campuses and institutes in the greater Port of Spain area including the research based Natural Gas Institute of the Americas and the Chaguaramas Centre for Maritime Studies. Port of Spain has a population of 18,008 males and 19,066 females, with 5,694 businesses and is home to 12,333 households with an average size of 2.9 according to the 2011 census. The city experienced an average annual growth rate of −2.3% between the censuses of 2000 and 2011 Port of Spain's diverse population
Piracy in the Caribbean Spanish garrisons. In these cities European manufactured goods could command premium prices for sale to the colonists, while the trade goods of the New World—tobacco, cocoa and other raw materials, were shipped back to Europe. By 1600, Porto Bello had replaced Nombre de Dios (where Sir Francis Drake had first attacked a Spanish settlement) as the Isthmus of Panama's Caribbean port for the Spanish Silver Train and the annual treasure fleet. Veracruz, the only port city open to trans-Atlantic trade in New Spain, continued to serve the vast interior of New Spain as its window on the Caribbean. By the