The peo­ple of the Nether­lands estab­lished a trad­ing set­tle­ment at a fine nat­ur­al har­bour on the Caribbean island of Cura­cao in 1634. The town devel­oped con­tin­u­ous­ly over the fol­low­ing cen­turies. The mod­ern town con­sists of sev­er­al dis­tinct his­toric dis­tricts whose archi­tec­ture reflects not only Euro­pean urban-plan­n­ing con­cepts but also styles from the Nether­lands and from the Span­ish and Por­tuguese colo­nial towns with which Willem­stad engaged in trade.