Lesser Antilles

Lesser Antilles
Location within the Caribbean
Location within the Caribbean
Coordinates: 14°N 61°W / 14°N 61°W / 14; -61
RegionCaribbean
Island States
Area
 • Total14,364 km2 (5,546 sq mi)
Population
 (2009)
 • Total3,949,250
 • Density274.9/km2 (712/sq mi)
DemonymLesser Antillean
Time zoneUTC−4 (AST)
 • Summer (DST)UTC−3 (ADT)
Trunk Bay, United States Virgin Islands

The Lesser Antilles[1] are a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea. They are distinguished from the large islands of the Greater Antilles to the west. They form an arc which begins east of Puerto Rico and swings south through the Leeward and Windward Islands almost to South America and then turns west along the Venezuelan coast (Leeward Antilles) as far as Aruba. Barbados is isolated about 100 miles east of the Windwards.

Most of them are part of a long, partially volcanic island arc between the Greater Antilles to the north-west and the continent of South America.[2] The islands of the Lesser Antilles form the eastern boundary of the Caribbean Sea where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. Together, the Lesser Antilles and the Greater Antilles make up the Antilles. (Somewhat confusingly, the word Caribbean is sometimes used to refer only to the Antilles, and sometimes used to refer to a much larger region.) The Lesser and Greater Antilles, together with the Lucayan Archipelago, are collectively known as the West Indies.

The islands were dominantly Kalinago compared to the Greater Antilles which was settled by the Taíno, the boundary set between them is known as the "poison arrow curtain" for the Kalinago's favoured weapon for fending off Europeans that came to conquer the islands in the 16th century.[3]

  1. ^ (Spanish: Antillas Menores; French: Petites Antilles; Papiamento: Antias Menor; Dutch: Kleine Antillen)
  2. ^ "West Indies." Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary, 3rd ed. 2001. (ISBN 0-87779-546-0) Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster Inc., p. 1298.
  3. ^ Floyd, Troy S. (1973). The Columbus Dynasty in the Caribbean, 1492-1526. University of New Mexico Press. p. 135.

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