What is the Greater Antilles and Lesser Antilles?
What is the Greater Antilles and Lesser Antilles?
Three major physiographic divisions constitute the West Indies: the Greater Antilles, comprising the islands of Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), and Puerto Rico; the Lesser Antilles, including the Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Montserrat, Guadeloupe.
What is largest Greatll Antilles?
Greater Antilles, the four largest islands of the Antilles (q.v.)—Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico—lying north of the Lesser Antilles chain. They constitute nearly 90 percent of the total land area of the entire West Indies.
Which 7 islands are part of the Antilles?
The Greater Antilles, made up of the larger islands to the north and west, include Cuba, the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Hispaniola (Haiti on the west and the Dominican Republic on the east) and Puerto Rico.
Why is it called Lesser Antilles?
The Windward Islands and the Leeward Islands make up the Lesser Antilles of the Caribbean. The Windward Islands got their name because they’re exposed to the wind (“windward”) of the northeast trade winds (northeasterlies).
What is the largest island in the world that is not a continent?
Greenland
Greenland is officially the world’s largest island that is not a continent. Home to 56,000 people, Greenland has its own extensive local government, but it is also part of the Realm of Denmark.
What does Antilles mean in English?
plural noun. a chain of islands in the West Indies, divided into two parts, the one including Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico (Greater Antilles ), the other including a large arch of smaller islands to the SE and S (Lesser Antilles, or Caribees ).
What is the closest island to Cuba?
Jamaica lies to the south of Cuba, while the Cayman Islands are located to the west. The state of Florida is the closest point in the U.S mainland to the Greater Antilles, while the Florida Keys, though not part of the Greater Antilles, is an island group north of Cuba.
Which is a part of the Greater Antilles?
The Greater Antilles consists of the Island of Hispaniola, which is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. The Lesser Antilles is made up of three groups of smaller islands: the Virgin Islands, Bahamas archipelago, and the Windward and Leeward Islands.
What are the names of the Lesser Antilles?
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.
Where did the name of the Antilles come from?
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.
What are the names of the Leeward Antilles?
Leeward Antilles 1 Aruba ( Kingdom of the Netherlands) 2 Bonaire ( Netherlands) 3 Curaçao (Kingdom of the Netherlands) 4 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