Lesser Antilles

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 Tobago

Islands 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.

References

Rogonzinski, Jan. A Brief History of the Caribbean. New York: Facts on File, 1992.

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References

See also