Where is antilles west indies

The remainder of the land belongs to the archipelago of the Lesser Antilles, which is a chain of islands to the east running north-south and encompassing the eastern edge of the Caribbean Sea where it meets the Atlantic Ocean and south running east-west off the northern coast of South America.

The Lesser Antilles is a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea. Most form a long, partly volcanic island arc between the Greater Antilles to the northwest and the continent of South America.

The islands form the eastern boundary of the Caribbean Sea with the Atlantic Ocean. Together, the Lesser Antilles and the Greater Antilles compose the Antilles or the Caribbean in its narrowest definition. The islands of the Lesser Antilles are divided into three groups: the Windward Islands in the south, the Leeward Islands in the north, and the Leeward Antilles in the west.

The Windward Islands , also known as the Islands of Barlovento, are the southern, generally larger islands of the Lesser Antilles, within the West Indies. Dominica was originally considered part of the Leeward Islands but was transferred from the British Leeward Islands to the British Windward Islands in The Windward Islands are so-called because they were more windward to sailing ships arriving in the New World than the Leeward Islands, given that the prevailing trade winds blow east to west.

The trans-Atlantic currents and winds that provided the fastest route across the ocean brought these ships to the rough dividing line between the Windward and Leeward Islands. The West Indies refers to a collection of islands in the Caribbean. These islands have nothing to do with India — they were named the West Indies because when Christopher Columbus arrived on the island of Hispanola where the Dominican Republic and Haiti are , he thought that he was in India.

Hispanola is just one of the many islands in the West Indies, and the Dominican Republic and Haiti are only two countries out of many. Hispanola is part of a more extensive collection of islands within the West Indies, known as the Greater Antilles. Cuba and Jamaica are both countries — they have their own flags, governments, economies, cultures, et cetera. Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States , so it is not a country. The form of an arc, Antilles, extends over 3, km from Cuba to Venezuela.

The Antilles were used to describe a wide geographical region. Some countries also include Guyana, French Guiana, and Suriname. For this reason, the region has not been clearly defined until today. In this respect, it can be said that the Caribbean and West Indies are also used for the Antilles. But simply, these islands and countries are shown below as the Greater Antilles and the Lesser Antilles. The Antilles starts from the west with Cuba, which is the largest of the four islands of the Greater Antilles.

The Bahamas , in the north of Cuba, a long island, are not included in the Antillean Islands, because they are directly in the ocean, not the Caribbean Sea. Haiti or Hispaniola, separated by the Windward Strait in the east of Cuba, is the second-largest island. Jamaica is located in the south-east of Cuba and completely within the Caribbean Sea. Kitts, St. Vincent, Grenada, Tobago, Trinidad.

There are quite a few smaller islands. The Antilles consists of 13 countries and 14 dependent regions. The richness of different cultures in the Antilles was developed in the Caribbean before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in