[2][3] It has a population of 56,005 (2022 estimate)[4] and its inhabitants are mostly Afro-descendant Creoles, Miskitu, Mestizo, as well as smaller communities of Garinagu, Chinese, Mayangna, and Rama.

The origin of the city of Bluefields is connected with the presence of European pirates on the Nicaraguan Caribbean coast, subjects of powers at the time hostile to Spain.

In 1602, a Dutch soldier of fortune named Abraham Blauvelt chose the bay of the Escondido River as his center of operations due to its tactical advantages.

In 1740, the Miskitos yielded to British sovereignty over the territory, and in 1744, a transfer of White colonists was organized from Jamaica to the Kingdom of Moskitia; they brought black slaves with them.

Thereafter it became part of the Republic of New Granada, now Colombia, until, through the Esguerra-Bárcenas Treaty, the Colombian state formally ceded the territory to Nicaragua.

The "Europeanization" of the Indians was completed by the 1880s, when British and Americans expanded the production of bananas and wood, creating a prosperous enclave economy; by the 1880s, Bluefields was already a city of cosmopolitan character, with an intense commercial activity.

When threatened with potential boarding by US Coast Guard ships, cocaine smugglers try to dispose of their illegal cargo by throwing it overboard, simultaneously lightening their load for a faster escape and eliminating the evidence in case of capture.

For the rest of the year when tropical low pressure dominates rainfall is extremely heavy, helped by the coast being shaped in such a manner as to intercept winds from the south as prevail during the northern summer.

Bluefields has several municipal headquarters and rural communities including: Urban Level: Santa Rosa, Central, San Mateo, Pointeen, Fátima, Tres Cruces, Ricardo Morales, Old Bank, San Pedro, Teodoro Martínez, 19 de Julio, Pancasán, Punta Fría, New York, Beholden, Canal, Loma Fresca.

[citation needed] In the town, taxis are readily available at a fixed price of 14 cordobas per person (2020) and work on a shared basis.

Bluefields also known as home of the British Armed Forces strategic operations zone (SOZ) which was built in 1936 with the initial goal was encountered the further Nazi Germany Atlantic invasion of Nicaragua during the World War II—recently used to blocking drug trafficking from Mexico to outside Nicaragua via Bluefields and temporary humanitarian aid storage if the country being raged by series of natural disasters.