Caraïbes World

The largest of the Antilles, Cuba, has a surface area of 114,524 km2, roughly 1/5 that of France (550,000 km2) and Madagascar (592,000 km2).

The West Indies are an archipelago of islands, large in the north, small in the south, facing Central America. They are bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Caribbean Sea to the west.

The West Indies are some 7,000 km from Europe, a dozen days by boat or a dozen hours by plane.

On the other hand, they are very close to North America (Florida), Central America (Mexico) and South America (Venezuela).

II. The West Indies in the Caribbean world

The West Indies are located in the northern hemisphere. With the exception of a few islands (the Bahamas), they extend south of the Tropic of Cancer, over a length of around 1,500 km, between the 10th and 23rd degrees of latitude.

Their total surface area is around 225,000 km2, half that of France. They have a population of 17 million, or 1 /3 of the population of France.

In the north, there are the Greater Antilles: Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico and Jamaica. To the south, the Lesser Antilles, a string of islands and islets arranged in an arc. These are, from north to south: the Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Saint-Martin, Saint-Barthélemy, Saint-Christophe, Antigua, Montserrat, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, Saint-Lucia, Saint-Vincent, Barbados, Grenada, Tobago and Trinidad, separated from the South American continent by the Gulf of Paréa (or Gulf of Pearls).

III. How were the Antilles formed?

Let's start by noting that they are all mountainous, and that the sea trenches

surrounding them are sometimes deep (over 5,000 m). This suggests that they are the result of the break-up of a mountain chain, a sort of cordillera.

Significant volcanic activity has given rise to volcanoes that are not yet extinct. Their manifestations seem to be more or less closely linked to one another.

The eruption of one of them, Montagne Pelée, caused a terrible catastrophe in 1902. La Soufrière became a particular threat in 1956.

IV. Martinique and Guadeloupe

They occupy a central position among the Lesser Antilles. They are 250 km apart. The English island of Dominica forms a kind of link between the two French islands. Immediately to the north of Guadeloupe is Antigua. To the south of Martinique, the English island of Saint Lucia rises up from its steep, mountainous slopes.