Every year about 4.2 milion overnight stays are recorded in Schouwen-Duiveland. The concentration of visitors is on the western side of Schouwen-Duiveland. The yearly returning guests visit the island for stillness, beauty, nature, sports and the North Sea coast. For all these aspects, many events are organised every year. The VVV (Tourist Information Office) of Zeeland has published a special events calender in which Schouwen-Duiveland has its own section.

For far into the 20th century, Schouwen-Duiveland was an island that could only be reached by ferry. During the centuries, the inhabitants of the islands were dependant on eachother and lived isolated from other surrounding municipalities. During war or disaster the help from the mainland was usually slow. In the first place, the problems had to be solved by the inhabitants themselves. This led to unity on the island.

Schouwen-Duiveland consists of 18 residential areas that are scattered over the island. Originally, these were villages, towns and hamlets with their own identity.

The main source of income of the islanders was agriculture, horticulture and fisheries which was supplemented by tourism during the 19th and 20th centuries. Large scale industry is not present on the island. The prosperity on the island has increased by the opening up of the island. Especially the businesses that serve the tourists profit from this. Originally, tourism was confined to Renesse and Haamstede on Kop van Schouwen. The last decades tourism on the island has spread. The municipality aims at co-operating with other government bodies, nature and environmental organisations and the business community to increase sustainability.

The municipality of Schouwen-Duiveland is a young municipality, as it was formed in 1997 by the fusion of six municipalities. The municipality of Schouwen-Duiveland considers it very important that its inhabitants take part in the development of decision making in the municipality. For this reason, village councils in seventeen residential areas have been set up which can advise the municipal board both on its own and when asked. Because the inhabitants have been used to think and work on the realization of a safe and livable island, there is great participation in the poltical debates.

Before the coming about of the municipality of Schouwen-Duiveland, there already was a large social life with high participation. In total, the municipality has 57 different kinds of associations. Inhabitants are also active in ideological societies and there are many organisations on the island. Many inhabitants are closely connected to nature and tourism through their own organisations. In general, it can be said that the inhabitants of Schouwen-Duiveland actively participate in the whole community. 

The inhabitants of Schouwen-Duiveland consider the safety policy as the most important task of the municipality. To live, work and recreate safely is an important need for everybody. The integrated safety policy of Schouwen-Duiveland plays an important part in this and is being developed further. Several projects are being executed from the integrated safety policy.

An example of the safety theme are the contingency plans and external safety, the beach supervision, hush up team in Renesse and the quality mark for prevention of burglary and theft of and out of cars. Also, the project integrated network approach (division community) contributes to an improvement of the quality of life and safety.