Antilles

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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 "Greater Antilles" to the north including the larger islands of Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola (Haiti and 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.<ref> Some sources, such as Encarta in Spanish, consider the Bahamas part of the Antilles. [1] (Spanish) </ref>

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 – due to the prevalence of Spanish – are included in Latin America.

1 Background
2 Greater Antilles
3 Lesser Antilles
4 Footnotes
5 References

[edit] Background

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.