Antilles

As Antilles refers to a group of islands in the Caribbean. It consists of the Great and the Lesser Antilles, and together with the Bahamas, the West Indies.

Subdivision

Name

The name of the island group is said to derive from the mythical island Antilia, a small island in the Atlantic, which should be inhabited by a Christian community.

According to another theory, the name is derived from the fact that Christopher Columbus wanted to India, China and Japan reached on the western route and not so expected to find a new continent. This also explains the name Antilles. It is derived from the Latin word ante ilium, which means as much as offshore islands, from. This just means the Central American islands.

On the Ottoman map of Piri Reis of 1513 is in Arabic script an island with ' antilia " refers to the island of Cuba is to the position behind suspected.

Overview

The following are the largest islands in the Antilles are listed. The Bahamas are not counted in most sources to the West Indies, only the Spanish Encarta refers to this in the Antilles.

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