Why are they called the Lesser Antilles?

Why are they called the Lesser Antilles?

The Windward Islands and the Leeward Islands make up the Lesser Antilles of the Caribbean. The Windward Islands got their name because they’re exposed to the wind (“windward”) of the northeast trade winds (northeasterlies).

What is another name for the Lesser Antilles?

The Lesser Antilles (Spanish: Antillas Menores; French: Petites Antilles; Papiamento: Antias Menor; Dutch: Kleine Antillen) are a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea. 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.

What does the Lesser Antilles consist of?

The Lesser Antilles is made up of three groups of smaller islands: the Virgin Islands, Bahamas archipelago, and the Windward and Leeward Islands.

What is the meaning of Antilles?

plural noun. a chain of islands in the West Indies, divided into two parts, the one including Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico (Greater Antilles ), the other including a large arch of smaller islands to the SE and S (Lesser Antilles, or Caribees ).

What is the difference between the Greater and Lesser Antilles?

The geographic location of the two groups is different, with the Greater Antilles located in the northern end of the Caribbean Sea south of the United States. Furthermore, the Greater Antilles are made up of continental rock whereas the Lesser Antilles are mostly comprised of coral islands or volcanic rock.

Where are the Lesser and Greater Antilles?

The Greater Antilles consists of Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Cayman Islands, and Hispaniola. Hispaniola is divided into Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The Lesser Antilles are the Pupa Islands in the north of the Antilles and the Winward Islands in the southeast.

Why are there Greater and Lesser Antilles?

What are the Lesser Antilles?

The Lesser Antilles are divided up into two groups, the Windward Islands and the Leeward Islands. The chain of the Lesser Antilles islands begins in the Virgin Islands, and wraps in a southerly direction around the eastern Caribbean. The chain ends near Trinidad and Tobago, at South America.

Is Trinidad and Tobago part of the Lesser Antilles?

Lesser Antilles. A number of other islands— Trinidad and Tobago, off the northeastern coast of Venezuela, and the east-west island chain from Margarita Island to Aruba, off the northern coast of Venezuela—are physiographically part of the South American continental shelf but are usually included in definitions of the Lesser Antilles.

What is the difference between Windward Antilles and Leeward Antilles?

The islands of the Lesser Antilles are divided into three groups: the Windward Islands in the south, the Leeward Islands in the north, and the Leeward Antilles in the west. The Leeward Antilles consist of the Dutch ABC islands just off the coast of Venezuela, plus a group of Venezuelan islands.

Where is the Lesser Antilles located on the continental plate?

…of the Caribbean Sea, the Lesser Antilles —volcanic islands that form a typical island arc—mark a zone where a part of the floor of the North Atlantic Ocean underthrusts that of the Caribbean Sea—namely, the Caribbean Plate. This plate has moved east relative to both North and South America at a…