Tobago,^[a] officially the Ward of Tobago, is an island and ward in Trinidad and Tobago. It is located 35 kilometres (20 nautical miles) northeast of the larger island of Trinidad and about 160 kilometres (85 nautical miles) off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. It lies to the southeast of Grenada and southwest of Barbados.

Tobago was named Belaforme by Christopher Columbus “because from a distance it seemed beautiful”. The Spanish friar Antonio Vázquez de Espinosa wrote that the Kalina (mainland Caribs) called the island Urupina because of its resemblance to a big snail,^{[4]: 84–85} while the Kalinago (Island Caribs) called it Aloubaéra, supposedly because it resembled the alloüebéra, a giant snake which was supposed to live in a cave on the island of Dominica.^[4]: 79 The earliest known record of the use of the name Tabaco to refer to the island is a Spanish royal order issued in 1511. That name was inspired by the resemblance of the shape of the island to the fat cigars smoked by the Taíno inhabitants of the Greater Antilles.^{[4]: 84–85}