Kingston was founded in July 1692 as a place for survivors of the 1692 earthquake that destroyed Port Royal . Before the earthquake , Kingston 's functions were purely agricultural . The earthquake survivors set up a camp on the sea front . Approximately two thousand people died due to mosquito-borne diseases . Initially the people lived in a tented camp on Colonel Barry 's '' Hog Crawle '' . The town did not begin to grow until after the further destruction of Port Royal by fire in 1703 . Surveyor John Goffe drew up a plan for the town based on a grid bounded by North , East , West and Harbour Streets . The new grid system of the town was designed to facilitate commerce , particularly the system of main thoroughfares across which allowed transportation between the port and plantations farther inland . By 1716 it had become the largest town and the centre of trade for Jamaica . The government sold land to people with the regulation that they purchase no more than the amount of the land that they owned in Port Royal , and only land on the sea front . Gradually wealthy merchants began to move their residences from above their businesses to the farm lands north on the plains of Liguanea
1692 earthquake
1692 Jamaica earthquake
Kingston, Jamaica