부산대학교 도서관

Group of Caribbean Islands comprising Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, the Netherlands Antilles, and the Leeward and Windward Islands. These last include the French Overseas Departments of Martinique and Guadeloupe with their dependencies of St. Martin, St. Barthélémy, and the Saintes Islands; the American and British Virgin Islands; Dominica; Grenada; St. Lucia; St. Vincent; and the Netherlands possessions of Saba, St. Eustatius, and St. Maarten, among numerous smaller islands. The westernmost islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao were all formerly Dutch colonies, but Aruba withdrew from the Netherlands Antilles in 1986. (For map, see Caribbean islands, fig.) Janet Henshall Momsen, revised by C. C. McKee In geological terms the Virgin Islands form an eastern extension of the faultblock geology of the Greater Antilles, while the outer islands, such as Anguilla, Antigua, and Barbuda in the Leeward Islands, Barbados, eastern Guadeloupe, and the Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao group, are of coral limestone formation. The latter are generally low-lying and surrounded by white sand beaches and coral reefs. Rainfall is low, ...