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Leeward Islands
The Leeward Islands () are a group of islands situated where the northeastern Caribbean Sea meets the western Atlantic Ocean. Starting with the Virgin Islands east of Puerto Rico, they extend southeast to Guadeloupe and its dependencies. In English, the term ''Leeward Islands'' refers to the northern islands of the Lesser Antilles chain. The more southerly part of this chain, starting with Dominica, is called the Windward Islands. Dominica was initially considered a part of the Leeward Islands but was transferred from the British Leeward Islands to the British Windward Islands in 1940. Origin of the name The name of this island group, ''Leeward Islands'', dates from previous centuries, when sailing ships were the sole form of transportation across the Atlantic Ocean. In sailing terminology, "windward and leeward, windward" means towards the source of the wind (upwind), while "windward and leeward, leeward" is the opposite direction (downwind). In the West Indies, the prevailin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caribbean Sea
The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba to Puerto Rico, the Lesser Antilles to the east from the Virgin Islands to Trinidad and Tobago, South America to the south from the Venezuela, Venezuelan coastline to the Colombia, Colombian coastline, and Central America and the Yucatán Peninsula to the west from Panama to Mexico. The Geopolitics, geopolitical region around the Caribbean Sea, including the numerous islands of the West Indies and adjacent coastal areas in the mainland of the Americas, is known as the Caribbean. The Caribbean Sea is one of the largest seas on Earth and has an area of about . The sea's deepest point is the Cayman Trough, between the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, at below sea level. The Caribbean coastline has many gulfs and bays: the Gulf of Gonâve, the Gul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Windward Islands
The Windward Islands are the southern, generally larger islands of the Lesser Antilles of the Caribbean islands or the West Indies. Located approximately between latitudes 10° and 16° N and longitudes 60° and 62° W, they extend from Dominica in the north to Trinidad and Tobago in the south, and lie south of the Leeward Islands and east of Leeward Antilles. The name was also used to refer to a British colony which existed between 1833 and 1960 and originally consisted of the islands of Grenada, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent. Today, these islands constitute three sovereign states, the latter of which is now known as Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The island of Dominica was traditionally considered a part of the Leeward Islands until 1940, when it was transferred from the British Leeward Islands colony to the British Windward Islands. It now composes the fourth sovereign state in the group. Barbados (until 1885) and Tobago (until 1889) were also part of the Brit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northern America
Northern America is the northernmost subregion of North America, as well as the northernmost region in the Americas. The boundaries may be drawn significantly differently depending on the source of the definition. In one definition, it lies directly north of Middle America.Gonzalez, Joseph. 2004"Northern America: Land of Opportunity"(ch. 6). ''The Complete Idiot's Guide to Geography.'' () New York: Alpha Books; pp. 57–8 Northern America's land frontier with the rest of North America then coincides with the Mexico–United States border. Geopolitically, according to the United Nations' scheme of geographical regions and subregions, Northern America consists of Bermuda, Canada, Greenland, Saint Pierre and Miquelon and the United States (the contiguous United States and Alaska only, excluding Hawaii, Navassa Island, Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, and other minor U.S. Pacific territories). Definitions Maps using the term ''Northern America'' date back to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central America
Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually defined as consisting of seven countries: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. Within Central America is the Mesoamerican biodiversity hotspot, which extends from southern Mexico to southeastern Panama. Due to the presence of several active geologic faults and the Central America Volcanic Arc, there is a high amount of seismic activity in the region, such as volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, which has resulted in death, injury, and property damage. Most of Central America falls under the Isthmo-Colombian cultural area. Before the Spanish expedition of Christopher Columbus' voyages to the Americas, hundreds of indigenous peoples made their homes in the area. From the year 1502 onwards, Spain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caribbean
The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America to the west, and South America to the south, it comprises numerous List of Caribbean islands, islands, cays, islets, reefs, and banks. It includes the Lucayan Archipelago, Greater Antilles, and Lesser Antilles of the West Indies; the Quintana Roo Municipalities of Quintana Roo#Municipalities, islands and Districts of Belize#List, Belizean List of islands of Belize, islands of the Yucatán Peninsula; and the Bay Islands Department#Islands, Bay Islands, Miskito Cays, Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina, Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia, and Santa Catalina, Corn Islands, and San Blas Islands of Central America. It also includes the coastal areas on the Mainland, continental mainland of the Americas bordering the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gulf Of Guinea
The Gulf of Guinea (French language, French: ''Golfe de Guinée''; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Golfo de Guinea''; Portuguese language, Portuguese: ''Golfo da Guiné'') is the northeasternmost part of the tropical Atlantic Ocean from Cape Lopez in Gabon, north and west to Cape Palmas in Liberia. Null Island, defined as the intersection of the Equator and Prime Meridian (zero degrees latitude and longitude), is in the gulf. Among the many rivers that drain into the Gulf of Guinea are the Niger River, Niger and the Volta River, Volta. The coastline on the gulf includes the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Bonny. Name "Guinea" is thought to have originated from a local name for an area in the region, although the specifics are disputed. Bovill (1995) gives a thorough description: The name "Guinea (region), Guinea" was also previously applied to the south coast of West Africa (north of the Gulf of Guinea), which became known as "Upper Guinea", and to the west coast of Southern Afri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gold Coast (British Colony)
The Gold Coast was a British Empire, British Crown colony on the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa from 1821 until its independence in 1957 as Ghana. The term Gold Coast is also often used to describe all of the four separate jurisdictions that were under the administration of the Governor of the Gold Coast. These were the Gold Coast itself, Ashanti (Crown Colony), Ashanti, the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast, Northern Territories protectorate and the British Togoland, British Togoland trust territory. The first European explorers to arrive at the coast were the Portuguese in 1471. They encountered a variety of African kingdoms, some of which controlled substantial deposits of gold in the soil. In 1483, the Portuguese came to the continent for increased trade. They built the Castle of Elmina, the first European settlement on the Gold Coast. From here they acquired slavery, slaves and gold in trade for European goods, such as metal knives, beads, mirrors, rum, and guns. News ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trade Winds
The trade winds or easterlies are permanent east-to-west prevailing winds that flow in the Earth's equatorial region. The trade winds blow mainly from the northeast in the Northern Hemisphere and from the southeast in the Southern Hemisphere, strengthening during the winter and when the Arctic oscillation is in its warm phase. Trade winds have been used by captains of sailing ships to cross the world's oceans for centuries. They enabled European colonization of the Americas, and trade routes to become established across the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. In meteorology, they act as the steering flow for tropical storms that form over the Atlantic, Pacific, and southern Indian oceans and cause rainfall in North America, Southeast Asia, and Madagascar and East Africa. Shallow cumulus clouds are seen within trade wind regimes and are capped from becoming taller by a trade wind inversion, which is caused by descending air aloft from within the subtropical ridge. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West Indies
The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in three archipelagos: the Greater Antilles, the Lesser Antilles, and the Lucayan Archipelago. The subregion includes all the islands in the Antilles, in addition to The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands, which are in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. The term is often interchangeable with "Caribbean", although the latter may also include coastal regions of Central America, Central and South American mainland nations, including Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, French Guiana, Guyana, and Suriname, as well as the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic island nation of Bermuda, all of which are geographically distinct from the three main island groups, but culturally related. Terminology The English term ''Indie'' is deri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Windward And Leeward
In geography and seamanship, windward () and leeward () are directions relative to the wind. Windward is ''upwind'' from the point of reference, i.e., towards the direction from which the wind is coming; leeward is ''downwind'' from the point of reference, i.e., along the direction towards which the wind is going. The side of a ship that is towards the leeward is its "lee side". If the vessel is heeling under the pressure of crosswind, the lee side will be the "lower side". During the Age of Sail, the term ''weather'' was used as a synonym for ''windward'' in some contexts, as in the '' weather gage''. Since it captures rainfall, the windward side of a mountain tends to be wetter than the leeward side it blocks. The drier leeward area is said to be in a rain shadow. Origin The term "windward" has roots in both Low German and Old English. The word "lee", which means a place without wind, comes from the Old Norse "hle" for "cover" and has been used in marine navigation in G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sailing Ship
A sailing ship is a sea-going vessel that uses sails mounted on Mast (sailing), masts to harness the power of wind and propel the vessel. There is a variety of sail plans that propel sailing ships, employing Square rig, square-rigged or Fore-and-aft rig, fore-and-aft sails. Some ships carry square sails on each mast—the brig and full-rigged ship, said to be "ship-rigged" when there are three or more masts. Others carry only fore-and-aft sails on each mast, for instance some schooners. Still others employ a combination of square and fore-and-aft sails, including the barque, barquentine, and brigantine. Early sailing ships were used for river and coastal waters in Ancient Egypt and the Mediterranean. The Austronesian peoples developed maritime technologies that included the fore-and-aft crab-claw sail and with catamaran and outrigger boat, outrigger hull configurations, which enabled the Austronesian expansion into the islands of the Indo-Pacific. This expansion originated in Ta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandy Ground Anguilla
Sandy may refer to: People and fictional characters *Sandy (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or nickname * Sandy (surname), a list of people * Sandy (Iranian music band), Iranian singer, composer, arranger, and keyboard player * Sandy (Brazilian singer), Brazilian singer and actress Sandy Leah Lima (born 1983) * Sandy (Egyptian singer), Arabic singer Sandy Adel Ahmed Hussein (born 1986) * (Sandy) Alex G, a former stage name of American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Alexander Giannascoli (born 1993) * Sandy Mitchell, pen name of British writer Alex Stewart Places * Sandy, Bedfordshire, England, a market town and civil parish ** Sandy railway station * Sandy, Carmarthenshire, Wales * Sandy, Florida, an unincorporated area in Manatee County * Sandy, Oregon, a city * Sandy, Pennsylvania, a census-designated place * Sandy, Utah, a city * Sandy, Kanawha County, West Virginia, an unincorporated community * Sa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
