Thanks in large part to its fine natural harbour, Port of Spain was made Trinidad's capital in 1757. The downtown area is the oldest section of the city, and despite its run-down appearance is the shopping and finance centre of the capital. Within the compact grid of streets surrounding broad Brian Lara Promenade/Independence Square and bustling Frederick Street, internationally known shops jostle for space with old Spanish warehouses, offices, shops and the paraphernalia of the docks, while the thoroughfares are jammed with traffic, pedestrians and pavement vendors. The discovery of offshore oil in the 1970s left the city with a sleek financial district , dominated by the imposing twin towers of the Central Bank on the western side of the promenade.

Tumbling down the hills to the east of the city are the poor suburbs of Laventille and Belmont, established by freed slaves after emancipation in 1834. West of the city centre lies Woodbrook, an elegant middle-class suburb settled in the early twentieth century. Established by Indian immigrants in the nineteenth century, the St James district further west still has streets named after the settlers' home towns. North of the city at the base of the Northern Range are the districts of St Ann's and Maraval, which have fast become the centre of the city's expanding hotel trade. In addition, settlers from China, Portugal, Venezuela and Syria all came to Trinidad to try their luck. Descendants of these groups, and those of the French, Spanish, British, African and Indian communities, ensure that Port of Spain retains its cosmopolitan mix of peoples and cultures.