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
Downtown Port of Spain in the heart of the city, with a late-Victorian fountain and bandstand, trees, benches, and lawns. It has famously been the site of many political rallies over the decades; former Prime Minister Eric Williams gave many public lectures here, dubbing it "the University of Woodford Square", and near the eastern gate is a spot which has become Port of Spain's Speakers' Corner. Two blocks south of Woodford Square is Independence Square (formerly Marine Square), which runs along the breadth of downtown Port of Spain from Wrightson Road to the west to the Roman Catholic Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception