Caribbean Sea

Map of Central America and the Caribbean

The Caribbean Sea is a tropical body of water adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean and southeast of the Gulf of Mexico. It covers most of the Caribbean Plate and is bounded on the south by Venezuela, Colombia, and Panama, to the west by Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, and the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, to the north by the Greater Antilles islands of Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico, and to the east by the Lesser Antilles.

The Caribbean Sea is one of the largest salt water seas and has an area of about 2,754,000 km² (1,063,000 square miles). The sea's deepest point is the Cayman Trench, between Cuba and Jamaica, at 7500 m (25,000 feet) below sea level.

The entire area of the Caribbean Sea, especially the numerous islands, is known as the Caribbean.

See also

• List of islands in the Caribbean
• Antilles
• Caribbean_South_America