Windward Islands

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This article is about the Caribbean island group. For the eastern Society Islands in French Polynesia, see Windward Islands (Society Islands). The southeastern Hawaiian Islands are also occasionally referred to as the Windward Islands.

The Windward Islands are the southern islands of the Lesser Antilles.

[edit] Name and geography

The Windward Islands are called such because they were more windward to sailing ships arriving in the New World than the Leeward Islands, given that the prevailing trade winds in the West Indies blow east to west. The trans-Atlantic currents and winds that provided the fastest route across the ocean brought these ships to the rough dividing line between the Windward and Leeward islands. Vessels in the Atlantic slave trade departing from the African Gold Coast and Gulf of Guinea would first encounter the southeasternmost islands of the Lesser Antilles in their west-northwesterly heading to final destinations in the Caribbean and North and Central America.

The Antillean Windward Islands are :

Martinique (French; all the others are part of the Commonwealth of Nations)
Saint Lucia
Saint Vincent
Grenadines
Grenada
Dominica

[edit] Terminology

In other languages than English (i.e., Dutch, French, German and Spanish), and also in the local English of some islands, "windward" and "leeward" refer to different groups of islands. In both cases, the east/southeasternmost group are called windward, while the westernmost are called leeward. The group of islands along the Venezuelan coast is called the Leeward Antilles in English.