 We close out the week with the second part of our #geoweirdness series on the Caribbean, this time focusing on the Lesser Antilles If you missed our thread on the Greater Antilles a few weeks back, check it out here: https://en.osm.town/@opencage/112655562329583675 Without further ado, #geoweirdness of the Lesser Antilles. 1/ 12 comments
4/ Another nearby ๐ฌ๐ง British overseas territory is the island of Montserrat ๐ฒ๐ธ Technically the capital is the town of Plymouth. In practice though it and the southern half of the island have been covered by lava since 1995. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montserrat The new capital, Little Bay, is currently under construction 5/ in the late 1950s-early 1960s there was a short-lived effort to unite all the various ๐ฌ๐ง British Caribbean territories into the "West Indies Federation" which it was hoped would become independent as a single state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Indies_Federation However the group could not agree how it would be governed or function viably and was eventually abandoned 6/ Moving on we have the case of Saint-Martin/Sint Maarten. Saint-Martin is part of France ๐ซ๐ท. Sint Maarten ๐ธ๐ฝ is a "constituent country" of the the Kingdom of the Netherlands ๐ณ๐ฑ, as are Aruba ๐ฆ๐ผ and Curaรงao ๐จ๐ผ in the Leeward Antilles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivity_of_Saint_Martin 7/ Not far away is the French ๐ซ๐ท territory of Saint Barthรฉlemy ๐ง๐ฑ, purchased from Sweden ๐ธ๐ช in 1878 as we covered in our #geoweirdness thread about Sweden. 8/ Saint Martin unlike Saint Barthรฉlemy ๐ง๐ฑ, but like the other ๐ซ๐ท French Caribbean territories of Guadeloupe ๐ฌ๐ต, Martinique ๐ฒ๐ถ, and French Guiana ๐ฌ๐ซ - is part of the European Union ๐ช๐บ and is on the maps on the Euro notes ๐ถ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_territories_of_members_of_the_European_Economic_Area 9/ Nearby we have the tiny islands of Saba and Sint Eustatius, which are part of the Netherlands ๐ณ๐ฑ (though they use the US dollar ๐ต). They are municipalities of the Netherlands, NOT constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Saba is famous for being home to Mount Scenery, the highest point in the Kingdom of the Netherlands at 887 meters. 11/ Last up is Barbados ๐ง๐ง. The easternmost island in the Caribbean is a continental island that is grouped culturally and politically with the Windward Islands despite not being a part of the volcanic arc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbados in 2021 Barbados removed the Queen of England ๐ฌ๐ง as head of state and became a republic 12/ Of course, we could go on - there are dozens more islands worth writing about - but we had to stop somewhere. Weโll share the link to the Caribmap archive we used to find some of the wonderful old maps shared in this thread and in the Greater Antilles thread (be prepared to lose a few hours browsing) http://www.caribmap.org/index.php?id=gada&link=1851-gre-philip 13/ Thanks for reading and sharing. What did we miss in our look at the #geoweirdness of the Lesser Antilles? Weโll be back soon with more geoweirdness! Donโt forget to check out our previous threads (including threads about the Greater Antilles and British Overseas Territories) over on the blog: https://blog.opencagedata.com/geothreads Enjoy the weekend! |
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2/ The Lesser Antilles form the distinctive arc of islands that extends from Puerto Rico ๐ต๐ท south and is divided into three island groups.
1. The Leeward Islands
2. The Windward Islands
3. The Leeward Antilles (confusing!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesser_Antilles
In total there are 8 independent nations and many dependent territories.
It's complicated, as we shall see.
#geoweirdness
2/ The Lesser Antilles form the distinctive arc of islands that extends from Puerto Rico ๐ต๐ท south and is divided into three island groups.
1. The Leeward Islands
2. The Windward Islands
3. The Leeward Antilles (confusing!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesser_Antilles
In total there are 8 independent nations and many dependent territories.
It's complicated, as we shall see.