 1/ This week for #geoweirdness we kick off a two part series about the Caribbean. Initially we thought a single thread would do, but with over 7,000 islands, it's just too much. Instead, we'll break things up roughly along the lines of the regionโs two main archipelagos โ the Greater and Lesser Antilles. 10 comments
3/ European colonisation of the Caribbean has led to a linguistically diverse region today. As well as English, Spanish, and French, there are many creole languages. One example is Haitian Creole, an official language of Haiti ๐ญ๐น 4/ Let's start our tour in the east with the Virgin Islands, an archipelago of three political jurisdictions. We have the British Virgin Islands ๐ป๐ฌ, which is a ๐ฌ๐ง British Overseas Territory, but uses the ๐ต๐ฐ US dollar as its currency. Cars drive on the left, but most are imported from the US and thus also have the steering wheel on the left. ๐คฏ 5/ Next we have the ๐ป๐ฎ US Virgin Islands, which was previously the ๐ฉ๐ฐDanish Virgin Islands. The USVI is an unincorporated territory of the United States ๐บ๐ธ, purchased from Denmark in 1917 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_the_Danish_West_Indies And west of that we have the Spanish Virgin Islands, which is part of Puerto Rico ๐ต๐ท, and thus also an unincorporated territory of the United States. 7/ Eastward to Hispaniola, the most populous island in the Greater Antilles. It is composed of two nations: Haiti ๐ญ๐น and the Dominican Republic ๐ฉ๐ด The island was under ๐ช๐ธ Spanish control from its โdiscoveryโ in the 1490s. In the 17th century, French pirates took over the western part, becoming the ๐ซ๐ท French colony of Saint-Domingue. Harsh slavery conditions led to the Haitian Revolution in the 1790s. In 1804, Haiti ๐ญ๐น gained independence, the first to be liberated by former slaves. 8/ Haiti ๐ญ๐น has a place in OpenStreetMap history: the 2010 earthquake was a major impetus for the creation of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team 9/ Sadly conditions in Haiti ๐ญ๐น are still very difficul, and it is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Here's an aerial image of the border with the much wealthier Dominican Republic ๐ฉ๐ด, you can see the significant deforestation on the Hatian side. In February 2023, construction was started on a border wall on the Dominican side to stop migrants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominican_Republic%E2%80%93Haiti_border 10/ Haiti ๐ญ๐น has an open territorial dispute - with the United States ๐บ๐ธ over tiny, uninhabited Navassa Island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navassa_Island The island is administered by the US Fish and Wildlife service as a National Wildlife Refuge. It is the only one of the "United States Minor Outlying Islands" not in the Pacific @opencage @opencage Some users of Caribmap may find this site interesting as well: https://www.atlasofmutualheritage.nl/ |
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2/ The Greater Antilles contains Cuba ๐จ๐บ, Hispaniola ๐ญ๐น ๐ฉ๐ด (more on this later), Puerto Rico ๐ต๐ท, Jamaica ๐ฏ๐ฒ, the Cayman Islands ๐ฐ๐พ.
The region has a rich cartographic history, which is captured in the the irresistible cartography project Caribmap.
Hereโs an old map from 1644 showing the Greater Antilles. Flick through the archive, itโs quite something:
http://www.caribmap.org/index.php?id=wies&link=1644-wi-jansson