Cuba; Antigua and Barbuda; Bahamas; Dominica; Grenada; Haiti; Jamaica; St. Kitts and Nevis; St. Lucia; St. Vincent and the Grenadines; Anguilla; the Dominican¹ Republic, Barbados; the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland--part: British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat, the Turks and Caicos Islands; France---part: Guadeloupe (including St. Martin and St. Barthélemy²), Martinique; United States of America--part: Navassa Island, Puerto Rico³, the Virgin Islands of the United States, Guantanamo Bay enclave; the Netherlands, part: Saba, Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten⁴ (Netherlands)

How is the land laid out?

In the Caribbean are numerous islands extending in a great arc from near Florida and the Yucatán in the northwest, starting southeast and eastward and then southward to near South America. They are loosely divided into the Greater and Lesser Antilles because the northern islands include the largest. Cuba⁵ is the chief among them, extending west to east for more than 1000 kilometers. It is separated from the Yucatán and Florida by straits bearing the names of the mainland states. It contains three moutainous regions but is on the whole flat or gently rolling.

South of Cuba's east end lies the smaller and more mountainous island of Jamaica. Beyond the channel of the same name and separated from Cuba by the Windward Passage is Hispaniola(⁶. It is much more mountainous than Cuba, and has taller peaks than Jamaica, but has more lowlands than that island. The fourth largest island is the rectangular Puerto Rico, a mixture of mountains and karst.

Who lives there?

This is one part of a large area of the Americas where Spanish and Roman Catholic Christianity represent the majority.

Havana⁷, capital of Cuba, was once a resort and vice city, but is subdued since the communist revolution. Santo Domingo is capital of the Dominican Republic, and site of the tomb said to be that of Colombus⁸. San Juan⁹, capital of Puero Rico, on an island connected to Puerto Rico island by a bridge, is famous for its 16th and 17th cnetury fortesses and governor's palace.

Who was there before?

The best known pre-Columbian languages were Arawakan, spoken on the large islands of the Caribbean as well as the mainland.

northeast, east and south
west of the Lesser Antilles and south of the Greater Antilles
southeast of Cape San Antonio, Cuba
northwest of northwestern Cuba
north of northern Cuba and west of the Bahamas

Other broad topics

Footnotes

1. Dominicana in Spanish.
2. Translates as Bartholomew.
3. Translates as Rich Port.
4. Translates as Saint Martin.
5. North America's fifth largest island.
6. Formerly Santo Domingo or Holy Sunday. It is North America's sixth largest island.
7. La Habana in Spanish.
8. Cristobal Colombo in Spanish; he was Italian however.
9. Translates as Saint John.