Everything about The Antilles totally explained
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 Sea. The Antilles are divided into two major groups: the "
Greater Antilles" to the north including the larger islands of
Cuba,
Jamaica,
Hispaniola (
Haiti and the
Dominican Republic), and
Puerto Rico; and the smaller "
Lesser Antilles" on the southeast — comprising the northerly
Leeward Islands, the southeasterly
Windward Islands, and the
Leeward Antilles just north of
Venezuela.
The Bahamas, though part of the West Indies, are generally not included among the Antillean islands.
Geographically, the Antilles are generally considered part of North America. Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico – due to the prevalence of
Spanish – are included in
Latin America.
In terms of
geology, the Greater Antilles are made up of
continental rock, as distinct from the Lesser Antilles, which are mostly young
volcanic or
coral islands.
Background
The word
Antilles originated in the period before the European conquest 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, its location fluctuating in mid-ocean between the
Canary Islands and
India.
After the
1492 arrival of
Christopher Columbus's expedition in what was later called the West Indies, the European powers realized that the dispersed lands comprised an extensive archipelago enclosing the
Caribbean Sea and the
Gulf of Mexico. Thereafter, the term
Antilles was commonly assigned to the formation, and "Sea of the Antilles" became a common alternate name for the Caribbean Sea in various European languages.
Greater Antilles
Lesser Antilles
Anguilla (Br.)
Antigua and Barbuda
Aruba (Neth.)
Barbados
Bonaire (Neth. Ant.)
British Virgin Islands
Curaçao (Neth. Ant.)
Dominica
Grenada
Guadeloupe (Fr.), known as the French Antilles together with Martinique.
Martinique (Fr.), known as the French Antilles together with Guadeloupe.
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
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Saint Eustatius (Neth. Ant.)
Trinidad and Tobago
U.S. Virgin Islands
Footnotes
Further Information
Get more info on 'Antilles'.
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