Geography of Caribbean Islands

The geography of Caribbean Islands varies a lot from one place to another, from one island to another. The Caribbean Islands look like many stepping stones formed in an arc starting from the western end of South Africa’s Venezuela to the Florida peninsula in North America. The geography of Caribbean Islands has been divided into two different groups: the Greater Antilles, and the Lesser Antilles. In the group of the Greater Antilles are the four large islands of Puerto Rico, Cuba, Jamaica, and Hispaniola. Amongst the Lesser Antilles, there are smaller islands of Nevis, St. Kitts, Antigua, Anguilla, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Barbados, Dominica, Martinique, Tobago, Trinidad and Guadeloupe.

The Caribbean Islands’geography varies widely in size also, ranging from Hispaniola and Cuba, from the tiny to the largest islands of the Grenadines. The body of water that surrounds these islands is the Caribbean Sea that also borders the northern coast of South America. Some of the islands in the group of Caribbean Islands have comparatively flat terrain that are of non-volcanic origin. These Caribbean islands include Bahamas, Bonaire, Aruba, Antigua or the Cayman Islands, and Barbados. The other islands in the Caribbean group have rugged lofty mountain ranges such as the islands of the Virgin Islands, Cuba, Hispaniola, Dominica, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Montserrat, St. Kitts, St. Vincent, Trinidad, Tobago, St. Lucia, the Grenadines, and Saba.

The climate of Caribbean Islands mainly varies between sub-tropical and tropical type and depends largely on the location and proximity to the trade-winds blowing from the Atlantic. In brief, geography of Caribbean Islands influences a lot the climate of the island. The trade-winds blow in the direction of the Eastern Caribbean Islands and heads toward northwest up the Windward islands chain. When the trade-winds come close to the island of Cuba, they usually get overcome by other minor jet streams that are across the region of the Caribbean. The Caribbean Sea serves as home to many migratory and large shoals of fish, colorful coral reef formations, and turtles.

The Puerto Rico trench lies on the outer boundary of the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, and is just north to the island of Puerto Rico, is known as the deepest point in the Atlantic Ocean. In most of the cases, hurricanes storm the region and mostly strike the northwards of Grenada, and also to the western part of Barbados. The prime hurricane belt arcs to the northwest of the Barbados island in the Eastern Caribbean.