Antilles

Antilles, term applied to all the islands of the Caribbean region, except the chain forming the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. The Antilles are divided into two main groups, the Greater and Lesser Antilles. The Greater Antilles comprise Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola (divided politically into Haiti and the Dominican Republic), and Puerto Rico, the largest islands of the Caribbean, plus some associated small islands. The Lesser Antilles, extending in an arc south from Puerto Rico to the north-eastern coast of South America, include the Windward Islands; the Leeward Islands; Aruba; Curaçao and Bonaire, the southernmost of the two groups of islands forming the Netherlands Antilles; Margarita, Tortuga, and other offshore islands belonging to Venezuela; and, usually, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago.