The Caribbean Sea is one of the largest seas on Earth. It covers about 2.75 million square kilometres of warm, clear, tropical water in the western Atlantic, and it gives its name to one of the most recognisable regions in the world.
The name comes from the Caribs, one of the native peoples who lived around these waters when Europeans first arrived. Their name spread to the sea, the islands, and everything around it. Today the whole of it, the water and the lands that ring it, is simply called the Caribbean.
Look at what borders the sea and you see the shape of the region. To the north and east lie the islands, the Greater and Lesser Antilles, curving from Cuba down to Trinidad. To the south runs the coast of South America, from Venezuela to Colombia. To the west stand Central America and Mexico's Yucatán. The same sea touches all of them. That is why this site holds both the islands and the mainland shores: they share one sea, and the sea is what makes them Caribbean.
The water stays warm all year, in the 70s and 80s Fahrenheit, and around a tenth of the world's coral reefs grow in it. From June to November the same warm water feeds the hurricanes that sweep the region. In all, the Caribbean borders 12 mainland countries and holds more than 20 island territories.
Features of the sea
- The Cayman Trough — the deepest point of the Caribbean, almost 7,700 metres down, lying between Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.
- The Mesoamerican Barrier Reef — the second largest barrier reef in the world, running about 1,000 km along the coasts of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras.
Below you will find every part of the Caribbean, grouped by where it sits on the sea: the islands of the Antilles, the ABC islands off Venezuela, the Lucayan islands to the north, and the continental coasts of Central and South America.
