Antilles

Antilles
The Antilles (Jamaican Patois: Antiliiz) is an archipelago bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the south and west, the Gulf of Mexico to the northwest, and the Atlantic Ocean to the north and east.
The Antillean islands are divided into two smaller groupings: the Greater Antilles and the Lesser Antilles. The Greater Antilles includes the Cayman Islands and larger islands of Cuba, Hispaniola (subdivided into the nations of the Dominican Republic and Haiti) and Navassa Island, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. The Lesser Antilles contains the northerly Leeward Islands and the southeasterly Windward Islands as well as the Leeward Antilles just north of Venezuela. The Lucayan Archipelago (consisting of The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands), though a part of the West Indies, is generally not included among the Antillean islands.
Geographically, the Antillean islands are generally considered a subregion of North America. Culturally speaking, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico – and sometimes the whole of the Antilles – are included in Latin America, although some sources use the phrase "Latin America and the Caribbean" instead (see Latin America, "In Contemporary Usage"). 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 colonization of the Americas, 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 constituted an extensive archipelago in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. The Antilles were called multiple names before their current name became the norm. Early Spanish visitors called them the Windward Islands (today having a narrower definition). They were also called the Forward Islands by 18th-century British. Thereafter, the term Antilles was commonly assigned to the formation, and "Sea of the Antilles" became a common alternative name for the Caribbean Sea in various European languages.
Countries and territories
Lucayan Archipelago
The Bahamas
Turks and Caicos Islands (United Kingdom)
Greater Antilles
Cayman Islands (United Kingdom)
Cuba
Isle of Youth
Hispaniola
Haiti
Dominican Republic
Jamaica
Puerto Rico (United States)
Lesser Antilles
Leeward Antilles
Aruba (Kingdom of the Netherlands)
Bonaire (Netherlands)
Curaçao (Kingdom of the Netherlands)
Federal Dependencies of Venezuela
Aves Island
Los Monjes Archipelago
La Tortuga Island
La Sola Island
Los Testigos Islands
Los Frailes Islands
Patos Island
Los Roques Archipelago
Blanquilla Island
Los Hermanos Archipelago
Orchila Island
Las Aves Archipelago
Nueva Esparta State (Venezuela)
Margarita Island
Coche
Cubagua
Leeward Islands
Anguilla (United Kingdom)
Antigua and Barbuda
Antigua
Barbuda
Redonda
British Virgin Islands (United Kingdom)
Guadeloupe (France)
La Désirade
Les Saintes
Marie-Galante
Montserrat (United Kingdom)
Saba (Netherlands)
Saint Barthélemy (France)
Saint Martin
Collectivity of Saint Martin (France)
Sint Maarten (Kingdom of the Netherlands)
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Kitts
Nevis
Sint Eustatius (Netherlands)
Spanish Virgin Islands (Puerto Rico)
United States Virgin Islands (United States)
Saint Croix
Saint Thomas
Saint John
Windward Islands
Dominica
Grenada
Martinique (France)
Saint Lucia
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Other islands
Barbados
Trinidad and Tobago
Tobago
Trinidad
See also
Antillia
References
International archipelagoes