Lesser Antilles
 |
Lesser Antilles in Caribbean |
The
Lesser Antilles are part of the
Antilles, which together with the
Bahamas form the
West Indies. They are a long
chain of islands, wrapped around the eastern end of the
Caribbean Sea, on the western boundary with the
Atlantic Ocean. The Lesser Antilles more or less coincide with the outer edge of the
Caribbean Plate, and many of the islands were formed by
subduction, as one or more other plates slipped under the Caribbean Plate.
The main Lesser Antilles are (from north to south to west):
*
U.S. Virgin Islands:
St. Thomas,
St. John,
St. Croix*
British Virgin Islands:
Tortola,
Virgin Gorda,
Anegada,
Jost Van Dyke*
Anguilla (UK)
*
Saint Martin, shared between
France and the
Netherlands Antilles.
*
Saint-Barthélemy (Fr.)
*
Saba (Neth.)
*
Sint Eustatius (Neth.)
*
Saint Kitts*
Nevis*
Barbuda*
Antigua*
Redonda*
Montserrat (UK)
*
Guadeloupe (Fr.)
*
La Désirade (Fr.)
*
Les Saintes (Fr.)
*
Marie-Galante (Fr.)
*
Dominica*
Martinique (Fr.)
*
Saint Lucia*
Barbados*
Saint Vincent*
Grenadines*
Grenada*
Trinidad and TobagoIslands off the
Venezuela coast:
*
Bonaire (Neth.)
*
Curaçao (Neth.)
*
Aruba (Neth.)
*
Nueva Esparta*other Venezuelan islands
The Lesser Antilles can be divided into the
Windward in the south and the
Leeward Islands in the north. (The prevailing winds in the region blow from south to north, thus hitting the Windward Islands first; the Leeward Islands, though on the Atlantic side of the chain, are more sheltered.) However, the Netherlands Antilles are divided into the groups in the northeast and the southwest, with different naming conventions, see
Netherlands Antilles.
Rogonzinski, Jan.
A Brief History of the Caribbean. New York: Facts on File, 1992.
*
The Antilles
