Map - San Salvador Island (San Salvador District)

San Salvador Island (known as Watling's Island from the 1680s until 1925) is an island and district of The Bahamas. It is widely believed that during Christopher Columbus's first expedition to the New World, this island was the first land he sighted and visited on 12 October 1492. He named it San Salvador after Christ the Saviour. Columbus's records indicate that the native Lucayan inhabitants of the territory, who called their island Guanahaní, were "sweet and gentle".

When he made landfall on the small island of San Salvador in October 1492, Columbus thought he had reached the East Indies, which was precisely his quest: to find an all-water route to the Orient so that European traders of precious spices could maximise their profits by cutting out Muslim middlemen. Additionally and more specifically, he was working on behalf of the Spanish to surpass the Portuguese, who had established trade routes around the Horn of Africa, a trans-Atlantic route being presumed cheaper and not in danger of Portuguese sabotage that may have been found along the ports around Africa. The island was called Guanahaní by the natives, before its discovery. Columbus described the natives as "sweet and gentle" and also wrote about what the culture of the natives was like. This included wearing minimal clothing and lacking weapons and metals. He also wrote, in his letter to Santangel that "The sierras and the mountains, the plains, the arable and pasture lands, are so lovely and so rich for planting and sowing, for breeding cattle of every kind, for building towns and villages." Thus giving a description of the landscape of the island. In the 17th century, San Salvador was settled by an English buccaneer, John Watling (alternately referred to as George Watling), who gave the island its alternative historical name. The United Kingdom gained control of what are now the Bahamas in the early 18th century. In 1925, the name "San Salvador" was officially transferred from another place, now called Cat Island, and given to "Watling's Island", based on historians believing it to be a more likely match for Columbus's description of Guanahaní. Advocates of Watling's Island included H. Major, the map-custodian of the British Museum; and the geographer Sir Clements Markham, as well as the American sea historian Samuel E. Morison.

The American Fr. Chrysostom Schreiner OSB, the first Catholic priest permanently assigned to the Bahamas, also promoted San Salvador as the correct landing site. In retirement, Fr. Chrysostom relocated to San Salvador, where he was buried. His tomb can still be seen on San Salvador.

From 1957 to 1959 USN Mobile Construction Battalion 7 constructed a LORAN Station on the north end of the island on the shores of Grahams Harbour. The station is now the site of the Gerace Research Centre (formerly known as the Bahamian Field Station). More than 1,000 students and researchers work from the station every year as a base of operations for studying tropical marine geology, biology and archaeology.