Title: Caribbean Sea | Encyclopedia.com
Headings: Caribbean Sea
Caribbean Sea
Caribbean Sea
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Caribbean Sea

Content: Caribbean Sea | Encyclopedia.com
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Caribbean Sea
Caribbean Sea
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Caribbean Sea
Defined geographically, the Caribbean Sea is the body of water surrounding the islands of the West Indies that also washes the mainland, Antilles-facing shores of Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, and Venezuela. As a cultural designation, the word "Caribbean" may also be used to identify not only the diverse peoples who inhabit the territory outlined above but also the population of Guyana. The term "Caribbean" has long suffered from lack of precision. Carl O. Sauer put the matter succinctly: " The whole of the Caribbean area came to be known in English as the Spanish Main, including the sea. Thus, sailing to the Spanish Main became called sailing on the Spanish Main." For two decades after Columbus made landfall, what the Spaniards called the Ocean Sea was thought to be a vast, unbroken expanse lying to the west between Europe and Asia. After Balboa traversed Darién, the Ocean Sea was divided in two, with the Pacific Ocean called the Mar del Sur (South Sea) and the Atlantic, with its Caribbean indentation, called the Mar del Norte ( North Sea ). In the English-language world, the designation dates to the eighteenth century and is attributed by Sauer to Thomas Jefferys, whose introduction to the West-India Atlas (1775) states that "it has been sometimes called the Caribbean-Sea, which name would be better to adopt, than to leave this space quite anonymous." " Caribbean" derives from Carib, the name given to a group of people originally from mainland South America who later island-hopped their way across the Lesser Antilles, displacing other cultures as they went and raiding eastern Puerto Rico until Spanish intrusion halted their expansion.