Several countries, including Barbados, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago, have developed significant mineral industries, with the chief mineral exports being bauxite from Jamaica and petroleum from Trinidad.Among the dependent states, foreign subsidies and remittances provide a major source of income. After the first of the voyages of Christopher Columbus to the Americas, Europeans began to use the term West Indies to distinguish the region from the East Indies of South Asia and Southeast Asia.
Moreover, they maintain military bases on several of these strategically important islands.Standards of living, relative to other less-developed countries, are generally high, particularly in the dependent states that receive large subsidies from central governments.
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Traditionally dependent on the sugar industry, it has attempted to diversify its economy by increasing its imports of capital goods to use as the basis for new industries.In an attempt to overcome problems of small size and dependence on a few export items, the Caribbean countries have formed economic unions, including the The governmental forms of the independent states of the West Indies range from the socialist republic of Cuba to republics such as Dominica and the Dominican Republic and to The independent states of the West Indies tend to be aligned with Western countries.
Despite the collapse of the Federation [in the early 1960s]... the West Indies continues to field a joint cricket team for international competition.The West Indies is a geologically complex island system consisting of 7,000 islands and The Greater Antilles originated near the Isthmian region of present day The oldest rocks in the Greater Antilles are located in Cuba.
The expressed intention of The West Indies is a large group of islands that separate the Caribbean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean.
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they are made up of countries and territories.
West Indies is not a country.
The United Kingdom, France, and the United States are responsible for the defense of their overseas lands in the West Indies.
Professor in History, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad.
The extent of government control varies considerably within the region.The remainder of this article covers the history of the region.
The independent states of the West Indies tend to be aligned with Western countries.
It is a region in Caribbean Basin and North Atlantic Ocean which comprises many islands and island nations.
Author of Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.The shape and alignment of the Greater Antilles are determined by an ancient chain of folded and faulted mountains that in Trending north-south, another mostly submerged chain of mountains forms the double arc of small islands that make up the Lesser Antilles.