The Caribbean Basin or Caribbean Proper (or the Caribbean Basin region [1] ) is a geopolitical term used to describe countries which generally border the Caribbean Sea. [2] As a geopolitical concept, the term often includes the country of El Salvador, which only touches the Pacific Ocean, for its similarities to neighbouring countries. The definition has also been taken literally at times[ according to whom? ] and can exclude areas such as Barbados and the Turks and Caicos Islands which also do not technically touch the Caribbean Sea. [3]
During the Cold War, the then US President Ronald Reagan coined the term to define the region benefiting from his administration's Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) economic program, approved in US law in 1983. Thus, the Caribbean basin included only the countries of the Caribbean insular and Central America that met the requirements of the CBI, and Cuba and Nicaragua, which the American government viewed as politically "repressive" and "economic failure" were excluded. [4] [5] [1] As a result of this US foreign policy initiative, the term "Caribbean Basin" began to be used as a geographic description in the 1980s. [6]
Canadian historians and academics, Professor Graeme S. Mount and Professor Stephen Randall, citing historian Bruce B. Solnick, posits that:
In the latter part of the 20th century, following the collapse of European colonialism, the Caribbean became "an American lake" which American hegemony seek to provide a form of unity in the region, [9] though the USA never saw itself as a Caribbean nation, nor did Venezuela until the 1970s. [10] That view is supported by the America historian and author, Professor Robert Pastor who argues that: "...all the nations in and around the Caribbean Sea seemed to have in common was a view of the United States as the "colossus of the north" and the U.S. view of them as a "backyard." [10]
The geographical area runs from the north in the Greater Antilles (such as Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico) to the west along the Caribbean coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, in Mexico and the Caribbean coasts of Central America, continuing towards the east by the arc formed by the Lesser Antilles and to the south by the Caribbean coasts of Panama, Colombia, and Venezuela.[ citation needed ] It is customary[ according to whom? ] to include Bermuda and the Bahamian Archipelago within this region, although they are located in the Atlantic Ocean outside the arc, since they share a cultural and historical legacy with other countries in the region. [11]
Sucre is a department in the Caribbean Region of Colombia. The department ranks 27th by area, 10,670 km2 (4,120 sq mi) and it has a population of 904,863, ranking 20th of all the 32 departments of Colombia. Sucre is bordered by the Caribbean on the northwest; by Bolívar Department on the east and by Córdoba Department on the west.
The Inter-American Division of Seventh-day Adventists is a sub-entity of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, which oversees the Church's work in Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and Northern South America.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, known as ECLAC, UNECLAC or in Spanish and Portuguese CEPAL, is a United Nations regional commission to encourage economic cooperation. ECLAC includes 46 member States, and 14 associate members which are various non-independent territories, associated island countries and a commonwealth in the Caribbean. ECLAC publishes statistics covering the countries of the region and makes cooperative agreements with nonprofit institutions. The headquarters of ECLAC is in Santiago, Chile.
The Association of Caribbean States is an advisory association of nations centered on the Caribbean Basin. It was formed with the aim of promoting consultation, cooperation, and concerted action among all the countries of the Caribbean coastal area. The primary purpose of the ACS is to promote greater trade between the nations, enhance transportation, develop sustainable tourism, and facilitate greater and more effective responses to local natural disasters.
ALBA or ALBA–TCP, formally the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America or the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Peoples' Trade Treaty, is an intergovernmental organization based on the idea of political and economic integration of Latin American and Caribbean countries.
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 athletics competition at the 2006 Central American and Caribbean Games took place at the Estadio Pedro de Heredia in Cartagena, Colombia and lasted from July 25 to July 29. There were 23 events for men and 21 for women. A total of ten Games records were broken at the competition, in addition to a number of national records.
The Spanish West Indies, Spanish Caribbean or the Spanish Antilles were Spanish territories 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 track and field competition at the 1990 Central American and Caribbean Games was held at the Estadio Olímpico Universitario in Mexico City, Mexico, between 28 November and 2 December.
The track and field competition at the 1993 Central American and Caribbean Games was held in November at the Estadio Francisco Montaner in Ponce, Puerto Rico.
The track and field competition in the 1998 Central American and Caribbean Games was held in Maracaibo, Venezuela. It was the first edition to feature women's hammer throw and pole vault.
The Caribbean 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 sometimes also included in the region. The region is south-east of the Gulf of Mexico and Northern America, east of Central America, and north of South America.
This is a timeline of the territorial evolution of the Caribbean and nearby areas of North, Central, and South America, listing each change to the internal and external borders of the various countries that make up the region.
The western Caribbean zone is a region consisting of the Caribbean coasts of Central America and Colombia, from the Yucatán Peninsula in southern Mexico to the Caribbean region in northern Colombia, and the islands west of Jamaica are also included. The zone emerged in the late sixteenth century as the Spanish failed to completely conquer many sections of the coast, and northern European powers supported opposition to Spain, sometimes through alliances with local powers.
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).