Recent searches
Search options
1/ This week for #geoweirdness we kick off a two part series about the Caribbean.
Initially we thought a single thread would do, but with over 7,000 islands, it's just too much.
Instead, we'll break things up roughly along the lines of the region’s two main archipelagos — the Greater and Lesser Antilles.
2/ The Greater Antilles contains Cuba 
, Hispaniola 
(more on this later), Puerto Rico 
, Jamaica 
, the Cayman Islands 
.
The region has a rich cartographic history, which is captured in the the irresistible cartography project Caribmap.
Here’s an old map from 1644 showing the Greater Antilles. Flick through the archive, it’s quite something:
http://www.caribmap.org/index.php?id=wies&link=1644-wi-jansson
3/ European colonisation of the Caribbean has led to a linguistically diverse region today.
As well as English, Spanish, and French, there are many creole languages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_Caribbean
One example is Haitian Creole, an official language of Haiti
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Creole
@opencage One of those maps says no one in Inagua or Mayaguana speaks Haitian Creole. That seems odd considering the uniformity shown in the rest of the Bahamas.