Greater Antilles began as a medieval phantom island on charts
Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, plus Navassa and the Caymans, form the Greater Antilles, the Caribbean’s cluster of big islands. The word Antilles itself comes from Antillia, a mysterious land that medieval mapmakers drew on their charts long before any European ship had sailed there.
Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean and in Latin America, followed by Hispaniola. Most of the group is independent, but Puerto Rico and Navassa are unincorporated U.S. territories and the Caymans a British Overseas Territory. The islands owe their existence to the Caribbean plate grinding against its neighbours: rock scraped onto the North American plate, volcanism, and deformed crust built the high ground. The Lesser Antilles, by contrast, run north–south along the sea’s eastern rim.
Sailing south from the Bahamas in 1492, Columbus explored Cuba’s northeast coast and Hispaniola’s north, opening Spanish conquest. On Puerto Rico, colonised early in the sixteenth century, Indigenous people were forced into encomienda labour despite the Laws of Burgos of 1512. Haiti’s successful slave revolt produced the first Black-led republic in 1804, and the Dominican Republic broke from Spain in 1821 before a period of Haitian unification.
Defeat in the Spanish–American War of 1898 cost Spain Cuba and Puerto Rico along with the Philippines, ending its American empire. The Jones–Shafroth Act of 1917 made Puerto Ricans U.S. citizens, and a 1947 law signed by Truman let them elect their own governor.
About 38 million people live on the islands, 6 per cent of Latin America’s population, and Santo Domingo, with over 2 million, is the largest city. Spanish dominates in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico, while Haiti uses Haitian Creole alongside French. In 2018 Puerto Rico and the Caymans ranked very high on the Human Development Index, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica high, and Haiti lowest.
Source: Greater Antilles
