Caribbean
Caribbean
Size
An archipelago, 4,020 kilometres
(2,500 mi) in length, and up to
257 kilometres (160 mi) wide;
region contains more than 7,000
islands, islets, reefs, and cays
Population
(2000)
25.5 million[1]
Ethnic
groups
African, Native American (Arawak,
Caribs, Taino), White (Spanish,
French, English, Portuguese,
Dutch), Asian (Chinese, Indian)
Demonym
West Indian, Caribbean
Government 13 sovereign states; also, 2 overseas
departments and 14 dependent
territories, tied to the European
Union or to the United States
Internet
TLD
Multiple
Calling
code
Multiple
Central America and the Caribbean
The Caribbean (pronounced /ˌkærɨˈbiːən/ or
/kəˈrɪbiən/;[2] Dutch
Caraïben
; French:
Caraïbe or more commonly Antilles; Spanish:
Detail of tectonic plates from: Tectonic plates
of the world
Caribe) is a region consisting of the Carib-
bean Sea, its islands (most of which enclose
the sea), and the surrounding coasts. The re-
gion is located southeast of the Gulf of Mex-
ico and Northern America, east of Central
America, and to the north of South America.
Situated largely on the Caribbean Plate,
the region comprises more than 7,000 is-
lands, islets, reefs, and cays. These islands,
called the West Indies, generally form is-
land arcs that delineate the eastern and
northern edges of the Caribbean Sea.[3]
These islands are called the West Indies be-
cause when Christopher Columbus landed
here in 1492 he believed that he had reached
the Indies (in Asia).
The region consists of the Antilles, divided
into the larger Greater Antilles which bound
the sea on the north and the Lesser Antilles
on the south and east (including the Leeward
Antilles), and the Bahamas and the Turks and
Caicos Islands, which are in fact in the At-
lantic Ocean north of Cuba, not in the Carib-
bean Sea.
Geopolitically, the West Indies are usually
reckoned as a subregion of Central Amer-
ica[4][5][6][7] and are organised into 27 territ-
ories including sovereign states, overseas de-
partments, and dependencies. At one time,
there was a short-lived co