Antilles

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The Antilles (the same in French; Antillas in Spanish; Antillen in Dutch) refers to the islands forming the greater part of the West Indies in the Caribbean. The Antilles are divided into two major groups: the larger "Greater Antilles" to the north including Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola (Haiti and Dominican Republic), and Puerto Rico; and the "Lesser Antilles" on the southeast — comprised of the northerly Leeward Islands, the southerly Windward Islands, and Venezuelan off-shore islands. The Bahamas, though part of the West Indies, are not among the Antillean islands.

Geographically, the Antilles are typically reckoned as part of North America. Cuba, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico – due to the prevalence of Spanish – are included in Latin America.

Contents 1 Background 2 Greater Antilles 3 Lesser Antilles 4 References

Background

Like the name Brazil, the word Antilles dates from a period before the discovery of the New World, "Antilia" being one of those mysterious lands which figured on the medieval charts sometimes as an archipelago, sometimes as continuous land of greater or lesser extent, constantly fluctuating in mid-ocean between the Canaries and East India.

After discovery of the West Indies by Christopher Columbus in 1492 and the realisation that they comprised an extensive archipelago enclosing the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, the Spanish term Antillas was commonly assigned to the new lands. Stemming from this, "Sea of the Antilles" is a common alternate name for the Caribbean Sea in various European languages.

Greater Antilles

Main article: Greater Antilles.

• Cuba
• Hispaniola
  • Dominican Republic
  • Haiti
• Jamaica
• Puerto Rico (U.S. commonwealth)

Lesser Antilles

Main article: Lesser Antilles.

• Anguilla (Br.)
• Antigua and Barbuda
• Aruba (Neth.)
• Barbados
• Bonaire (Neth. Ant.)
• British Virgin Islands
• Cayman Islands (Br.)
• Curaçao (Neth. Ant.)
• Dominica
• Grenada
• Guadeloupe (Fr.)
• Martinique (Fr.)
• Montserrat (Br.)
• Netherlands Antilles (Neth.)
• Redonda (part of Antigua and Barbuda)
• Saba (Neth. Ant.)
• Saint Barthélemy (Fr.)
• Saint Kitts and Nevis
• Saint Lucia
• Saint Martin (Fr.)/ Sint Maarten (Neth. Ant.)
• Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
• Saint Eustatius (a.k.a. "Statia") (Neth. Ant.)
• Trinidad and Tobago
• U.S. Virgin Islands

References

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