The Continental Caribbean is the part of the Caribbean region that lies on the mainland of the Americas rather than on islands. What ties it together is the Caribbean Sea: every shore from the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, down through Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama, and along the northern edge of South America in Colombia and Venezuela, opens onto the same water that surrounds the islands. To the southeast, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana extend the region across the Guianas. These are the continental edges of one maritime world.
The connection runs deeper than the coastline. Belize, Guyana, and Suriname are full members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the bloc that binds the region's nations together, and they share its languages, institutions, and Afro-Caribbean heritage. Along the Spanish-speaking coasts, ports like Cartagena, Colón, and Puerto Limón grew through centuries of Caribbean trade, migration, and cultural exchange, leaving a coastal identity rooted in Indigenous, African, and European life.
Together, the islands and these mainland shores form a single Caribbean. Seeing the region as the sea and everything that lives along it, not islands alone, gives the fullest picture of the Caribbean as a place, a culture, and a shared history.
Central America
South America
