Antilles
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 â€" comprised of the northerly
Leeward Islands, the southerly
Windward Islands, and
Venezuelan off-shore islands.
[ Some sources, such as Encarta in Spanish, consider the Bahamas part of the Antilles. [1] ]The Greater Antilles are made up of
continental rock, as distinct from the
Lesser Antilles, which are mostly young
volcanic or coral islands.
Geographically, the Antilles are typically reckoned as part of
North America. Cuba, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico â€" due to the prevalence of
Spanish â€" are included in
Latin America.
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.
Main article: Greater Antilles.
*
Cuba*
Hispaniola**
Dominican Republic**
Haiti*
Jamaica*
Puerto Rico (U.S.
commonwealth)
*
Cayman Islands (geographical zone under
Cuba)
Main article: Lesser Antilles.
*
Anguilla (Br.)
*
Antigua and Barbuda*
Aruba (Neth.)
*
Barbados*
Bonaire (Neth. Ant.)
*
British Virgin Islands*
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
