page_title: West Indies
section_title: Use of the term
hierarchical_section_title: West Indies / Use of the term
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Die Inseln der Karibik. Die Inseln der Karibik - Basisgrafik für die weiteren Karten mit hervorgehobenen Inseln pro Staat/abhängiges Gebiet. Amerikanische Jungferninseln Anguilla Antigua und Barbuda Aruba Barbados Britische Jungferninseln Dominica Dominikanische Republik Grenada Guadeloupe Haiti Jamaika Kaimaninseln Kuba Martinique Montserrat Niederländische Antillen Puerto Rico St. Kitts und Nevis St Lucia St. Vincent und die Grenadinen Trinidad und Tobago Turks- und Caicosinseln Platetectonics haitiquake Plattentektonik Haitibeben Caribbean Netherlands (BES islands)
context_page_description: The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater Antilles, the Lesser Antilles, and the Lucayan Archipelago.
  The subregion includes all the islands in the Antilles, plus The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands, which are in the North Atlantic Ocean. Nowadays, the term West Indies is often interchangeable with the term Caribbean, although the latter may also include some North and South American mainland countries which have Caribbean coastlines.
context_section_description: Tulane University professor Rosanne Adderly says:
  [T]he phrase "West Indies" distinguished the territories encountered by Columbus or and claimed by Spain from discovery claims by other powers in [Asia's] "East Indies"... The term "West Indies" was eventually used by all European nations to describe their own acquired territories in the continent of America... considering British Caribbean colonies collectively as the "West Indies" had its greatest political importance in the 1950s with the movement to create a federation of those colonies that could ultimately become an independent nation... Despite the collapse of the Federation [in the early 1960s]... the West Indies continues to field a joint cricket team for international competition.
  The West Indies cricket team includes participants from Guyana, which is geographically located in South America.
caption: The West Indies in relation to the continental Americas
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