Greater Antilles

Greater Antilles Grandes Antilles (French) Antillas Mayores (Spanish)
Region of the Caribbean
Location within the Caribbean.
Island States	6 Cuba Cayman Islands Dominican Republic Haiti Jamaica Puerto Rico
Area
• Total	207,435 km2 (80,069 sq mi)
Population (2013)
• Total	37,582,088
• Density	169.05/km2 (437.8/sq mi)
Demonym(s)	Greater Antillean
Time zones	EST: UTC-5/EDT: UTC-4
	AST: UTC-4/ADT: UTC-3

The Greater Antilles is a grouping of the larger islands in the Caribbean Sea; Cuba, Hispaniola (containing Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and the Cayman Islands. The Greater Antilles constitute over 90% of the land mass of the entire West Indies, as well as over 90% of its population, with the balance made of the archipelago of the Lesser Antilles which is a chain of islands to the east (running north-south and encompassing the eastern edge of the Caribbean Sea where it meets the Atlantic Ocean) and south (running east-west off the northern coast of South America).

The word Antilles originated in the period before the European conquest of the New World - Europeans used the term Antilia as one of the mysterious lands featured on medieval charts, sometimes as an archipelago, sometimes as continuous land of greater or lesser extent, its location fluctuating in mid-ocean between the Canary Islands and Eurasia.

Countries

Country with flag	Area (km²)	Population (1 July 2005 est.)	Population density (per km²)	Capital
Cuba	110,860	11,346,670	102.4	Havana
Cayman Islands (UK)	264	54,878	207.9	George Town
Dominican Republic	48,730	8,950,034	183.7	Santo Domingo
Haiti	27,750	8,121,622	292.7	Port-au-Prince
Jamaica	10,991	2,731,832	248.6	Kingston
Puerto Rico (USA)	9,104	3,916,632	430.2	San Juan
Total	207,435	35,066,790	169.05

See also

• Lesser Antilles
• Lucayan Archipelago

Further reading

• 254 pages.
• Rogozinski, Jan. A Brief History of the Caribbean. New York: Facts on File, 1992.