10 Interesting Facts About The Caribbean Islands

1. The Caribbean comprises more than 700 islands, islets, reefs and caves. The islands are divided into different island groups. There’s

the Lucayan Archipelago (f.e. the Bahamas)
the Greater Antilles (f.e. Cuba)
the Lesser Antilles, with sub island groups the Leeward Antilles (f.e. Aruba), the Leeward Islands (f.e.Antigua) and the Windward Islands (f.e. Grenada)

2. About only 2% of the Caribbean Islands is actually inhabited.

3. Most of the inhabitants of the Caribbean Islands are descendants of African slaves who were brought to the islands by European colonial powers to work on the sugar plantation. They stayed on the islands after the slavery had ended.

4. Dominant languages in the Caribbean region are Spanish, English, Dutch, Haitian Creole and Papiamento

5. Parts of all four Pirates of the Caribbean movies (The Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man’s Chest, At World’s End and On Stranger Tides), starring Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, were filmed in the Caribbean.

6. Jamaica was the scene of the very first James Bond film, Dr. No.

7. The shortest runway on earth, not more than 1,300 feet long, can be found at the Caribbean island of Saba.

8. There are more churches per square mile in Jamaica (1,600 in total) than in any other country in the world. You can even find this record in the Guinness Book of Records.

9. The only foreign place that former president George Washington ever visited was Barbados. He went there with his brother Lawrence, who suffered from tuberculosis and hope the change of environment would do him good. The house they stayed at is still there. It’s been restored and can be visited.

10. The Caribbean islands are also known as the ‘West Indies’. When Columbus set out to reach Asia (the Indies) by sailing west, he thought that he’d found the East Indies when he stumbled upon some islands. These islands were called the ‘Indies’ and Columbus called their inhabitants ‘Indians’. When his mistake was discovered, the Indies were renamed the West Indies to differentiate them from the real East Indies.

If you’d like to explore some of these interesting places yourself, have a look at these holidays to the Caribbean. They might help you choose which Caribbean destination is best for you.