Antilles
An archipelago in the Caribbean is called the Antilles . It consists of the Greater and Lesser Antilles . Together with the Turks and Caicos Islands (which are sometimes summarized under the term Lucayen ) they form the West Indies . The Antilles limit the Caribbean Sea to the north and east.
Subdivision
The Antilles (Greater Antilles and Lesser Antilles) | |
The Greater Antilles : Cuba , Jamaica , Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico . The adjective “great” refers to these four main islands. However, the archipelago also includes many smaller islands and archipelagos. |
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The Lesser Antilles stretch from the Virgin Islands in the north to the Venezuelan coast in the south. |
Surname
The name of the archipelago is said to derive from the mythical island of Antilia , a small island in the Atlantic that is said to have been inhabited by a Christian community.
According to another theory, the name is derived from Latin (or Romance ) ante , which means "in front of" and could refer to the location of the islands "in front of" the continent.
On the Ottoman map of Piri Reis from 1513, an island is marked with antilia in Arabic script , the location behind it is assumed to be the island of Cuba.
overview
The largest islands in the Antilles are listed below. Most sources do not include the Bahamas as part of the Antilles, only the Spanish Encarta includes them in the Antilles.
Surname | Country (status) | Area (km²) | population | Density [inhabitants / km²] |
|
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Cuba | Cuba | 105,805.5 | 11,224,321 | 101 |
2 | Hispaniola |
Dominican Republic and Haiti |
73,929.0 | 15,546,026 | 203 |
3 | Jamaica | Jamaica | 11,189.6 | 2,598,000 | 227 |
4th | Puerto Rico | Puerto Rico (colony of the USA) | 9,099.8 | 3,916,632 | 430 |
5 | Trinidad | Trinidad and Tobago | 5,008.7 | 1,050,000 | 220 |
6th | Isla de la Juventud | Cuba | 2,237.3 | 84,751 | 33 |
7th | Martinique | France (own region ) | 1,128.0 | 401,000 | 355 |
8th | Margarita | Venezuela | 956.8 | 420,000 | 450 |
9 | Basse-Terre | France (part of the Guadeloupe region ) | 848.0 | 200,000 | 236 |
10 | Dominica | Dominica | 787.3 | 75,851 | 101 |
11 | Gonave | Haiti | 743.0 | 100,000 | 135 |
12 | Saint Lucia | St. Lucia | 639.8 | 160.145 | 258 |
13 | Grande Terre | France (part of the Guadeloupe region ) | 586.0 | 210,000 | 358 |
14th | Cozumel | Mexico | 539.1 | 73.193 | 149 |
15th | Cayo Romano | Cuba | 464.7 | ? | ? |
16 | Barbados | Barbados | 462.4 | 276,607 | 642 |
17th | Curacao | Kingdom of the Netherlands (own part of the country ) | 443.1 | 173,400 | 391 |
18th | St. Vincent | St. Vincent and the Grenadines | 381.0 | 108,600 | 314 |
19th | Cayo Coco | Cuba | 366.4 | ? | ? |
20th | Grenada | Grenada | 322.7 | 105,000 | 260 |
21st | Tobago | Trinidad and Tobago | 308.8 | 54.084 | 180 |
22nd | Bonaire | Kingdom of the Netherlands ( special municipality in the Netherlands) | 288 | 18,413 | 64 |
23 | Aruba | Kingdom of the Netherlands (own part of the country ) | 193 | 71,891 | 396 |
- Islands containing the capital of the country to which they belong are shown in bold .
- European countries are highlighted in color .