Looking for interesting facts about the Caribbean Islands? You've come to the right place! Below you can find a whole list with information about the Caribbean Islands, as well as some Caribbean quiz questions (with answers!) to train your knowledge.
Fun facts about the Caribbean Islands
1. There are more than 700 different Caribbean islands, islets, reefs, and caves. The islands are divided into different island groups. What are the three major island groups of the Caribbean?
- The Lucayan Archipelago – Countries are the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos islands. The list of all islands is too long to put here.
- The Greater Antilles – Greater Antilles islands list: Cuba, the Cayman Islands, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica and Puerto Rico
- 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). The complete list of Lesser Antilles islands is long.
2. How many Caribbean islands are actually inhabited? Only about only 2% of the islands are 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 slavery had ended.
4. Dominant languages in the Caribbeans are Spanish, English, Dutch, Haitian Creole and Papiamento
5. Another one of those Caribbean fun facts is that 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. Another one of those interesting facts about the Caribbean is that the shortest runway on earth, not more than 1,300 feet long, can be found on 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’. That's because 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.
And that's it! I hope you liked this Caribbean Islands information.
Learn more
Want more information about the Caribbean? Check out these books:
Caribbean trivia questions and answers
Want to test your knowledge of the Caribbean info I shared above? Take this little quiz!
1. Where is the Caribbean region located?
The Caribbean region lies southeast of the Gulf of Mexico, east of Central America, and north of South America.
2. Why are the Caribbean Islands called the West Indies?
The actual history behind it is pretty long, but it comes down to the fact that when Christopher Columbus sey out to find a sea route to India, he actually discovered the Americas by accident. He thought he'd found India, which is also why native Americans were called “Indians.
“West Indies” became the term to describe the territories discovered by Spain – and later also those by other European countries – in the Americas vs the territories in the “East Indies”, or Asia, where India was actually located.
3. Who discovered the Caribbean Islands?
Although the discovery of the Caribbean Islands, and more specifically of Dominica, is attributed to Christopher Columbus, the islands had in fact already been inhabited by indigenous tribes for centuries.
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The last image is an adjusted creative commons by Ren Ladin through Flickr.
Chance says
Cool
Anne Day says
i Did not find it useful when it came to homework on the Caribbean but overall it was quite interesting it helped me a lot.
cool!
wonderful!
epic!
fantastic!
helpful!
awesome!
FaZe Clan 4 lyfe says
Dude you sayed it wassen’t helpful for your homework yet you stated that it helped you alot for EX: “Interesting it helped me a lot.” Like come on man don’t be a skrub.
#GetGudFaZeClan
nick saban says
I think your cute
allq says
shut up
Rikki says
stop being horrible Anne was only giving support to the site. (which is very good, btw)
Sofie says
Thanks Rikki:)
FaZe apex says
this realy helped
thx
Heather C. says
this gave me lot of facts about my essay that was due and it also taught me more about how important religion is to them.
Sofie says
Happy it helped:)
Rob says
Just so you know, this website & author totally stole this article from you:
https://atlantablackstar.com/2014/04/23/10-interesting-facts-caribbean-islands-may-know/
Sofie says
Thanks Rob. It does indeed show a lot of similarities:/
Rikki says
Very interesting, thx :)
Sofie says
Happy you like it!
Joy Udugba says
A never knew it was so buetifil and the bahamas was part of the Caribbean
Joy Udugba says
Hello aren’t you going to reply me .
Joy Udugba says
Sofie what the bitch is wrong with you I’ve been waiting for a whole week already ANSWER ME IN AT LEAST IN A WEEK OR ELSE I WILL FIND YOU. GOODBYE FOR NOW I WILL BE WAITING .
Sofie says
Dear Joy,
I did reply, but apparently something went wrong and it didn’t come through. I’ve been having some website issues lately. Please realize that I have a lot of people contacting me every day and although I try to respond to every comment as fast as I can, sometimes I miss one. There is no need to yell or use disrespectful language.
Best Jamaica says
I think we need to learn more of these interesting facts, it gives us more self worth.
Sofie says
I’m glad you like them:)
bri says
didnt really help me
but it was cool
Bob says
Cool
Larkwing21 says
this really helped for this project we have in social studies!!
Sofie says
Happy it did!
Lacey says
I really enjoyed this definly helped me in social studies thanks
Sofie says
Thanks so much, glad it helped!
Celestial Lim says
thanks for the facts helped me alot
Sofie says
You’re welcome:)
allq says
carribeans are beautiful
Sofie says
:-)
Oscar new says
Cool make more interesting facts maybe
Sofie says
I might update this post in the future, until there, I have plenty of interesting facts on other countries:) Have a look around this page.
dakota says
there was only nine facts not ten.
Sofie says
I think you miscalculated :-)
Gabe says
idk it was ok. Put one of the facts on my presentation so ig it helped
Evie Hedger says
this helped me a lot x
Sofie says
Glad it did! :)
Karen says
great job
Sofie says
Thanks :)
Riley says
I have been there i loved it. It was awesome!!!!
Sofie says
Glad you liked it :)
Cassandra Perry says
i was trying to write a book on the Caribbean islands and this was pretty helpful. it didn’t cover everything, but was still great! thanks!
Sofie says
Happy it helped!