Distillers Country guides / Vanuatu
Vanuatu
A one-page guide to Vanuatu for the spirits trade: the country, its people, its economy and how it drinks.
At a glance
- Capital
- Port Vila
- Official languages
- Bislama, English, French
- Currency
- Vatu (VUV)
- Time zone
- UTC+11
- Area
- 12,189 km²
People
- Population
- 335,169 (2025)
- Population growth
- 2.2% a year
- Living in towns and cities
- 22.3%
- Aged under 15
- 38.0%
- Aged 65 and over
- 4.4%
- Life expectancy
- 71.7 years
Economy
- GDP
- US$1.4 billion (2025)
- GDP per person
- US$4,039 (2025)
- Economic growth
- 3.05% (2025)
- Inflation
- 0.66% (2025)
Climate
Tropical: warm to hot and rainy, 20-32 C, about 2,360 mm of rain a year, with a cyclone season December-April and a cooler dry season June-November. Tropical heat speeds maturation and demands cyclone-ready storage.
Alcohol
- Alcohol per adult a year
- 1.87 litres of pure alcohol (2019)
- Traditional drinks
- Kava (major traditional and export crop; non-distilled)
Sources: World Bank (population, economy and demographics), WHO Global Health Observatory (alcohol per adult and drinking mix); Vanuatu (Wikipedia); World Bank API; Our World in Data / WHO GISAH alcohol per capita; UN Comtrade API; Vanuatu Department of Industry - Vanuatu Made Catalogue 2025; Tusker (Vanuatu beer) (Wikipedia). Figures are the latest each source publishes; the year is shown beside each one.