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West Indies, archipelago in the northern part of the western hemisphere, separating the Caribbean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean. Visited and called the Indies by Christopher Columbus, it was subsequently designated the West Indies to distinguish it from the East Indies archipelago.

The West Indies comprises three main island chains that extend in a roughly crescent shape from the eastern tip of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico and southeastern Florida in the United States to the Venezuelan coast of South America. The Bahama Islands, in the north, form a southeasterly line. The Greater Antilles, comprising the islands of Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico, lie in the center. To the southeast, arching southward from Puerto Rico and then westward along the Venezuelan coast, are the Lesser Antilles, comprising the Leeward Islands and Windward Islands. Barbados, Trinidad, Tobago, and the Netherlands Antilles are often considered part of this third chain (see ANTILLES). The land area of the West Indies totals about 235,700 sq km (about 91,000 sq mi), and the total population (1990 estimate) was about 34 million.

Most of the noncoral islands of the West Indies are mountainous, projecting remnants of submerged ranges related to Central and South American mountain systems. Elevations of about 2130 to 2440 m (about 7000 to 8000 ft) are common in the Greater Antilles; the highest point (3175 m/10,417 ft) is Pico Duarte in the Cordillera Central of the Dominican Republic. The inner chain of the Lesser Antilles, part of a submerged volcanic ridge, consists mainly of volcanic cones, a number of which are still active.

The outer chain is composed largely of coral and uplifted limestone. Elevations in the Lesser Antilles rarely exceed 1524 m (5000 ft). The southernmost part of the archipelago, from Trinidad to Aruba, is geologically related to South American rock and mountain formations. The Bahamas and northern central Cuba, relatively flat limestone and coral formations, are geologically related to formations in Florida and the Yucatán Peninsula. Several deep ocean trenches lie close offshore and parallel to the islands of the Greater and Lesser Antilles, marking unstable crustal zones in which earthquakes may occur.

Climate
Except for part of the Bahamas chain, all the West Indies islands lie within the Tropic Zone, but temperate climatic conditions exist in many mountainous regions; and weather conditions at lower elevations are modified by such oceanic influences as the trade winds. Two seasons are distinguishable: a relatively dry season, from November through May; and a wet season, from June through October. Hurricanes, formed in the Atlantic, may occur between July and October, destroying much life and property when they sweep onshore.

Political Divisions
Politically, the West Indies comprises 13 independent nations and a number of colonial dependencies, territories, and possessions. The Republic of Cuba, consisting of the island of Cuba and several off-lying islands, is the largest West Indies nation. Haiti and the Dominican Republic, two other independent nations, occupy Hispaniola, the second largest of the archipelago. Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda are the other sovereign nations.
Sovereignty over nearly all the other West Indies islands is distributed among the United States, France, the Netherlands, and Great Britain. Puerto Rico, fourth largest island of the archipelago, is a commonwealth of the United States; and several of the Virgin Islands are United States territories (see VIRGIN ISLANDS OF THE UNITED STATES). The French West Indies includes Martinique, Guadeloupe, and a number of small island dependencies of Guadeloupe. The Dutch possessions consist of Curaçao, Bonaire, Aruba, and smaller Lesser Antilles islands (see NETHERLANDS ANTILLES). Venezuela holds about 70 Lesser Antilles islands. Dependencies of Great Britain are the Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, and some of the Virgin Islands (see VIRGIN ISLANDS, BRITISH).

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