1. Central America and the Caribbean

2. Caribbean Geography
The Caribbean consists of a chain, or archipelago, of many islands in the Caribbean Sea, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean.
An archipelago is a chain of many islands.

3. Caribbean Geography 3 groups of islands make up the Caribbean.
The Bahamas
The Greater Antilles
The Lesser Antilles
Greater and lesser in these names refer to the sizes of the islands.

4. The Greater Antilles 4 large islands Cuba Hispaniola Jamaica
Puerto Rico

5. The Greater Antilles (cont)
Cuba is the largest of the 4 islands
About the size of Tennessee
Only 90 miles south of Florida
Includes 1600 other smaller islands
Varied landscape
Mountains, hills, rolling plains, wide, fertile valleys, rain forests

6. US and Cuba Who did the US fight a war with over Cuba?
What crop was the US concerned with in Cuba?
When did the communist win power?
Who was their leader?
Who was the first US President that wanted to change the relationship?
When did Obama visit?

7. The Greater Antilles (Cont)
Hispaniola is covered by Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Puerto Rico is the smallest island in the Greater Antilles and is about the size of Delaware.

8. Why is Puerto Rico Not a State?

9. The Lesser Antilles SE of Puerto Rico Divided into 2 groups
Leeward Islands
Windward Islands
The NE trade winds are the reason for dividing them.
The trade winds are winds that consistently blow from the NE toward the equator. These winds give the Lesser Antilles a mild climate all year long, but also put them in danger of hurricanes.

10. The Bahamas
The Bahamas are the northernmost group of islands in the Caribbean.
They are only 50 miles off the eastern coast of Florida.
Made up of about 700 hundred islands and 2,400 cays.
Cays are small low-lying islands made of sand, limestone, or coral.
Coral is a hard, stony substance made up of skeletons of many tiny sea animals.

11. The Bahamas
Cay
Coral

12. The Bahamas Of the 700 islands in the Bahamas, people live on only about 20.
Grand Bahama
New Providence