The Caribbean Community is an intergovernmental organisation that is a political and economic union of 15 member states throughout the Americas and Atlantic Ocean. They have primary objectives to promote economic integration and cooperation among its members, ensure that the benefits of integration are equitably shared, and coordinate foreign policy. The organisation was established in 1973, with its four founding members signing the Treaty of Chaguaramas. Its primary activities involve:
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 originally considered a part of the Leeward Islands, but was transferred from the British Leeward Islands to the British Windward Islands in 1940.
The British West Indies (BWI) were colonised British territories in the West Indies: Anguilla, the Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, Montserrat, the British Virgin Islands, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, British Guiana and Trinidad and Tobago. Other territories included Bermuda, and the former British Honduras.
Caribbean English is a set of dialects of the English language which are spoken in the Caribbean and most countries on the Caribbean coasts of Central America and South America. Caribbean English is influenced by but is distinct to the English-based creole languages spoken in the region. Though dialects of Caribbean English vary structurally and phonetically across the region, all are primarily derived from British English and West African languages. In countries with a plurality Indian population, such as Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana, Caribbean English has further been influenced by Hindustani and other South Asian languages.
The English-speaking world comprises the 88 countries and territories in which English is an official, administrative, or cultural language. In the early 2000s, one billion to two billion people spoke English, making it the largest language by number of speakers, the third largest language by number of native speakers, and the most widespread language geographically. The countries in which English is the native language of most people are sometimes termed the Anglosphere. Speakers of English are called Anglophones.
The Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) is an examination board in the Caribbean. It was established in 1972 under agreement by the participating governments in the Caribbean Community to conduct such examinations as it may think appropriate and award certificates and diplomas on the results of any such examinations so conducted. The council is empowered to regulate the conduct of any such examinations and prescribe the qualification requirements of candidates and the fees payable by them. It is now an examining body that provides educational certifications in 16 English speaking Commonwealth Caribbean Countries and Territories and has replaced the General Certificate of Education (GCE) examinations used by England and some other members of the Commonwealth. The CXC is an institution of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM); it was recognised as an Associate Institution of the Community in the 1973 treaty that created the Caribbean Community. Members of the council are drawn from the 16 territories and the region's two universities, the University of Guyana and the University of the West Indies.
Caribbean literature is the literature of the various territories of the Caribbean region. Literature in English from the former British West Indies may be referred to as Anglo-Caribbean or, in historical contexts, as West Indian literature. Most of these territories have become independent nations since the 1960s, though some retain colonial ties to the United Kingdom. They share, apart from the English language, a number of political, cultural, and social ties which make it useful to consider their literary output in a single category. The more wide-ranging term "Caribbean literature" generally refers to the literature of all Caribbean territories regardless of language—whether written in English, Spanish, French, Hindustani, or Dutch, or one of numerous creoles.
The Americas, also known as America, are lands of the Western Hemisphere, composed of numerous entities and regions variably defined by geography, politics, and culture.
British America comprised the colonial territories of the English Empire, and the successor British Empire, in the Americas from 1607 to 1783. These colonies were formally known as British America and the British West Indies immediately prior to thirteen of the colonies seceding in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) and forming the United States of America.
The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island countries and 19 dependencies in three archipelagos: the Greater Antilles, the Lesser Antilles, and the Lucayan Archipelago.
The United Nations geoscheme for the Americas is an internal tool created and used by the UN's Statistics Division (UNSD) for the specific purpose of UN statistics.
The Spanish West Indies or the Spanish Antilles were Spanish colonies in the Caribbean. In terms of governance of the Spanish Empire, The Indies was the designation for all its overseas territories and was overseen by the Council of the Indies, founded in 1524 and based in Spain. When the Crown established the Viceroyalty of New Spain in 1535, the islands of the Caribbean came under its jurisdiction.
The Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) was an english speaking economic trade organization. It organised on 1 May 1968, to provide a continued economic linkage between the English-speaking countries of the Caribbean. The agreements establishing it came following the dissolution of the West Indies Federation which lasted from 1958 to 1962.
The Caribbean Tourism Organization's main objective is the development of sustainable tourism for the economic and social benefit of Caribbean people.
The Caribbean or West Indies is a subregion of the Americas that includes the Caribbean Sea and its islands, some of which are surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some of which border both the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean; the nearby coastal areas on the mainland are often also included in the region. The region is southeast of the Gulf of Mexico and the North American mainland, east of Central America, and north of South America.
Caribbean360 is the largest online news aggregator for the Caribbean. Started in 2005, it is based in Bridgetown, Barbados. Specializing in news sources from the nations of the Caribbean Community, it competes with One Caribbean Media and the Caribbean Net News. As of 2009, it drew from 35 print and electronic publishers in 28 countries.
The languages of the Caribbean reflect the region's diverse history and culture. There are six official languages spoken in the Caribbean:
A member state of the Caribbean Community is a state that has been specified as a member state within the Treaty of Chaguaramas or any other Caribbean state that is in the opinion of the Conference, able and willing to exercise the rights and assume the obligations of membership in accordance with article 29 of the Treaty of Chaguaramas. Member states are designated as either More economically developed country (MDCs) or Less economically developed countries (LDCs). These designations are not intended to create disparity among member states. The Community was established by mainly English-speaking Caribbean countries, but has since become a multilingual organisation in practice with the addition of Dutch-speaking Suriname in 1995 and French-speaking Haiti in 2002. There are fifteen full members of the Caribbean Community, four of which are founding members.
The term Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is an English-language acronym referring to the Latin American and the Caribbean region. The term LAC covers an extensive region, extending from The Bahamas and Mexico to Argentina and Chile. The region has over 670,230,000 people as of 2016, and spanned for 21,951,000 square kilometres (8,475,000 sq mi).
