Geographically, the Antillean islands are generally considered a subregion of North America. Culturally speaking, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico – and sometimes the whole of the Antilles – are included in Latin America, although some sources use the phrase "Latin America and the Caribbean" instead (see Latin America, "In Contemporary Usage").[3]
After the 1492 arrival of Christopher Columbus's expedition in what was later called the West Indies, the European powers realized that the dispersed lands constituted an extensive archipelago in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. The Antilles were called multiple names before their current name became the norm. Early Spanish visitors called them the Windward Islands (today having a narrower definition). They were also called the Forward Islands by 18th-century British.[5] Thereafter, the term Antilles was commonly assigned to the formation, and "Sea of the Antilles" became a common alternative name for the Caribbean Sea in various European languages.[citation needed]
^Some sources, such as Encarta in Spanish, include the Bahamas in the Antilles. [1]Archived 2009-10-04 at the Wayback Machine(in Spanish). Archived 2009-10-31.
