Antilles in the context of "Xenarthra"

The Dominican Republic is a country in the Caribbean located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and a land border with Haiti to the west, occupying the eastern five-eighths of Hispaniola which, along with Saint Martin, is one of only two islands in the Caribbean shared by two sovereign states. In the Antilles, the country is the second-largest nation by area after Cuba at 48,671 square kilometers (18,792 sq mi) and second-largest by population after Haiti with approximately 11.4 million people in 2024, of whom 3.6 million reside in the metropolitan area of Santo Domingo, the capital city.

The native Taíno people had inhabited Hispaniola prior to European contact, dividing it into five chiefdoms. Christopher Columbus claimed the island for Castile, landing there on his first voyage in 1492. The colony of Santo Domingo became the site of the first permanent European settlement in the Americas. In 1697, Spain recognized French dominion over the western third of the island, which became the independent First Empire of Haiti in 1804. A group of Dominicans deposed the Spanish governor and declared independence from Spain in November 1821, but were annexed by Haiti in February 1822. Independence came 22 years later in 1844, after victory in the Dominican War of Independence. The next 72 years saw several civil wars, failed invasions by Haiti, and a brief return to Spanish colonial status, before permanently ousting the Spanish during the Dominican Restoration War of 1863–1865. From 1930, the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo ruled until his assassination in 1961. Juan Bosch was elected president in 1962 but was deposed in a military coup in 1963. The Dominican Civil War of 1965 preceded the authoritarian rule of Joaquín Balaguer (1966–1978 and 1986–1996). Since 1978, the Dominican Republic has moved towards representative democracy.

The Greater Antilles is a grouping of the larger islands in the Caribbean Sea, including Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica, together with Navassa Island and the Cayman Islands. Seven island states share the region of the Greater Antilles, with Haiti and the Dominican Republic sharing the island of Hispaniola. Together with the Lesser Antilles, they make up the Antilles, which along with the Lucayan Archipelago, form the West Indies in the Caribbean region of the Americas.

While most of the Greater Antilles consists of independent countries, Puerto Rico and Navassa Island are unincorporated territories of the United States, while the Cayman Islands are a British Overseas Territory. The largest island is Cuba, which extends to the western end of the island group. Puerto Rico lies on the eastern end, and the island of Hispaniola, the most populated island, is located in the middle. Jamaica lies to the south of Cuba, while the Cayman Islands are located to the west. The state of Florida is the closest point in the U.S. mainland to the Greater Antilles, while the Florida Keys, though not part of the Greater Antilles, is an island group north of Cuba.

The Lesser Antilles is a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea, forming part of the West Indies in Caribbean region of the Americas. They are distinguished from the larger islands of the Greater Antilles to the west. They form an arc which begins east of Puerto Rico at the archipelago of the Virgin Islands, swings southeast through the Leeward and Windward Islands towards South America, and turns westward through the Leeward Antilles along the Venezuelan coast.

Most of them are part of a long, partially volcanic island arc between the Greater Antilles to the north-west and the continent of South America. The islands of the Lesser Antilles form the eastern boundary of the Caribbean Sea where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. Together, the Lesser Antilles and the Greater Antilles make up the Antilles. The Lesser and Greater Antilles, together with the Lucayan Archipelago, are collectively known as the Caribbean islands or West Indies.

The Ortoiroid people were the second wave of settlers of the Caribbean who began their migration into the Antilles around 2000 BC. They were preceded by the Casimiroid peoples (~4190-2165 BC). They are believed to have originated in the Orinoco valley in South America, migrating to the Antilles from Trinidad and Tobago to Puerto Rico. The name "Ortoiroid" comes from Ortoire, a shell midden site in southeast Trinidad. They have also been called Banwaroid, after another archaeological site in Trinidad.

The West Indies are an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island countries and 18 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 North Atlantic Ocean. The term is often interchangeable with "Caribbean", although the latter may also include coastal regions of Central and South American mainland nations, including Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, French Guiana, Guyana, and Suriname, as well as the Atlantic island nation of Bermuda, all of which are culturally related but geographically distinct from the three main island groups.

The French West Indies or French Antilles (French: Antilles françaises, [ɑ̃tij fʁɑ̃sɛːz]; Antillean Creole: Antiy fwansé) were the parts of France located in the Antilles islands of the Caribbean:

• The two overseas departments of:
  • Guadeloupe, including the islands of Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Les Saintes, Marie-Galante, and La Désirade.
  • Martinique
• The two overseas collectivities of:
  • Saint Martin, the northern half of the island with the same name, the southern half is Sint Maarten, a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
  • Saint Barthélemy

The Leeward Antilles (Dutch: Benedenwindse Eilanden; Spanish: islas de Sotavento) are a chain of islands in the Caribbean, specifically part of the southerly islands of the Lesser Antilles (and, in turn, the Antilles and the West Indies) along the southeastern fringe of the Caribbean Sea, just north of the Venezuelan coast of the South American mainland. The Leeward Antilles, while among the Lesser Antilles, are not to be confused with the Leeward Islands (also of the Lesser Antilles) to the northeast.

Largely lacking in volcanic activity, the Leeward Antilles island arc occurs along the deformed southern edge of the Caribbean Plate and was formed by the plate's subduction under the South American Plate. Recent studies indicate that the Leeward Antilles are accreting to South America.

The Mona ground iguana (Cyclura stejnegeri) is a critically endangered species of rock iguana, endemic to Mona Island, Puerto Rico. It is one of the island's few large land animals, and it is the largest endemic terrestrial lizard in the US territory, and one of the biggest rock iguanas within the Antilles. It was previously considered a subspecies of the rhinoceros iguana (Cyclura cornuta).

Ortoire, in Trinidad, is the archaeological type site for the Ortoiroid people, immigrants to the Antilles around 2000 BCE.

It is a shell midden site in southeast Trinidad.