Saint Kitts and Nevis is a federation of two islands: St Kitts and Nevis, it is the smallest nation in the Western Hemisphere and the world’s smallest federal state. Both British and French settlers arrived on the islands in the 1620s. The French finally renounced their claim to the territories under the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713. The colonial economy was based on sugar plantations with labour provided by enslaved peoples from West Africa. St Kitts and Nevis and Antigua were federated in 1882, but Antigua broke away in 1967. St Kitts and Nevis became fully independent from the UK in 1983 as a Commonwealth Realm. Current population c. 50,000.