Talk:List of Caribbean islands

additions and reorganization explained
Additions: I've added a lot more islands and island groups. The list is still not complete.

Reorganization: The list is now organized by national/territorial administrative group. Where islands are dependencies, their parent country is listed parenthetically.

Inhabited: I propose that the list primarily focus on inhabited islands, as there are thousands of uninhabited islands. Go ahead and add uninhabited islands, but they should probably be marked as such. A few of the islands listed now are barely inhabited (Marina Cay has electricity but only 3 customers).

Gruepig 17:35, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * the Bahamas alone has over ~ 700 Islands, and Cayes. This article will become very long if every little piece of rock is listed.  ;-)
 * Also Silver Islands in Barbados? Where's that??? CaribDigita 18:50, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't think every island should be listed (nor do I think there's any danger of that happening). But if there's an uninhabited island which has its own page, I think it should be linked.
 * And I second your question on the Silver Islands, as I also have no clue.
 * Gruepig 22:07, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

What is actually wrong with listing every island? (the excuse of the article becoming "too long" aside.........)

Merge with Caribbean
No don't merge with the Caribbean. The Caribbean is a body of water and the Bahamas and the Turks are not in the Caribbean. It's not about politics, demographics or economics, it's just plain geography. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.131.0.32 (talk) 01:23, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

There's a separate list of islands on the Caribbean page. I think I've added all of the islands here to it (though if someone wants to check, that would be great). Rather than maintain two separate lists, does it make sense to redirect this to Caribbean? --Gruepig 19:05, 27 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Redirecting to Caribbean. --Gruepig 17:11, 20 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Redirecting to List of Islands in the Caribbean, which still exists. — Reinyday, 06:04, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

No redirect.


 * I assume on the Caribbean page you'd want the main islands, or island groups listed. The purpose of this Article is to list the islands: Enuff Said. (And I have seen rocks listed here and there. Some are famous.[Baja Calif. Sur islands?]) (Notes from SonoranDesert Arizona).. -Mmcannis 00:20, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Why have the San Blas Islands (Panama) been excluded from the list of Caribbean Islands? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jrmccord (talk • contribs) 14:37, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Move?

 * I moved List of islands in the Caribbean to List of islands of the Caribbean obeying a user request which is now in this edit of page Requested moves; that request was made by User:Neelix at 19:16, 27 March 2009 (UTC): "Nearly all lists of islands by geographical region currently follow the title format "List of islands of x". There is no reason for the Caribbean article to vary from this standard.". Anthony Appleyard (talk) 21:12, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

List of islands "of" x means list of islands belonging to x. That makes sense when you're talking about islands belonging to some entity. But this list isn't defined in terms of "belonging to" some entity, it's a list of islands that happen to be located in the Caribbean. If it was a list of islands of the Caribbean, one could arguably include offshore islands in the Guianas, since those countries are "of" the Caribbean (CARICOM members, etc.) but not "in" the Caribbean. At the same time, one could make a case against the inclusion of offshore islands of mainland entities. So as this list currently exists, it is a list of islands in the Caribbean, not a list of islands of the Caribbean. I think this move creates ambiguity, and thus, moving it simply to match other lists of islands (no examples given...) is a very bad idea. Guettarda (talk) 16:33, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Move
Please undo the un-discussed move and do this properly. "Islands in the Caribbean" is idiomatic usage in English, "islands in the Antilles" is not. Note as well that "Antilles" is even more narrow in its usage than "Caribbean". The only realistic options in English are "Caribbean" and "West Indies". Guettarda (talk) 03:05, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I cannot as I am not a sysop, but I would not oppose if you moved it back (you appear to be a sysop, right?). I would oppose the term "West Indies", as that is an outmoded, imperialistic and (unintentionally) racist term. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  03:11, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Outmoded? Well, it's what we West Indians use. Guettarda (talk) 03:16, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Fair point! And articles should use the English variant and terminology of the area being discussed. BTW, I don't know why it didn't occur to me that this would be controversial, and kudos to you for not simply undoing my undiscussed action. ▫  Johnny Mr Nin ja  03:24, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

It appears some have a problem discerning the difference between a body of water (Caribbean Sea) and a group of islands (West Indies). Some of the islands in the West Indies are not in the Caribbean (Bahamas Turks). Chris was sailing West to find India and first came on the islands that later were named The Bahamas. It took somewhat longer to discern the boundaries of the Caribbean encased in the Greater and Lesser Antilles, The North Coast of South America, and Central America and Mexico. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.131.0.32 (talk) 01:41, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Bahamas in the Caribbean?
This article gives a long list of Bahamas islands. There are two reasons I think the Bahamas section should be deleted:

(1) There is already a more complete listing at List of islands of the Bahamas.

(2) More importantly, The Bahamas are not in the Caribbean. This is sort of recognized in the lede, which says This is a list of islands of the Caribbean region.... [bolding added], which may have been written to rationalize the inclusion of The Bahamas. But the article Caribbean says


 * The Caribbean...is a region that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (most of which are enclosed by the sea), and the surrounding coasts.

And the article Caribbean Sea says


 * The Caribbean Sea...is bounded...to the north by the Greater Antilles

Also Geography of the Bahamas says


 * The Bahamas is a group of about 700 atolls and cays in the western Atlantic Ocean....

without mentioning the Caribbean. So I don't think it's justifiable taking up a substantial amount of space in this article to give a list that's not as complete as the list in the real article, when the list is off-topic. Duoduoduo (talk) 22:55, 28 February 2013 (UTC)


 * The same comment applies to the Turks and Caicos Islands -- they're in this article, but they're not in the Caribbean. Duoduoduo (talk) 17:25, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands
The lede of this article says


 * Some continental countries also have islands in the Caribbean

so it seems reasonable that Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands would be included as sub-headings under the heading United States of America. As it is now, the section United States of America makes it look like the US has only three islands (all disputed) in the Caribbean. Duoduoduo (talk) 23:05, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved to list of Caribbean islands. Ixfd64 (talk) 19:29, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

List of islands in the Caribbean → List of islands of the Caribbean – Per Wikipedia's policy on using commonly recognizable names, "islands of the Caribbean" is a far more common construction than "islands in the Caribbean". A Google Books search for "islands of the Caribbean" reveals about 3,270,000 results, while "islands in the Caribbean" turns up only about 1,630,000. The word "of" does not indicate ownership, as has been argued in previous discussions; the word "of" is appropriate when referring both to unified bodies as well as to geographical locations. Consider, for example, Fauna of Africa. The "List of islands of x" title format is well-established, and there is no reason to vary from it in this case. Neelix (talk) 03:39, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment List of Caribbean islands would fix the issue. -- 65.94.171.206 (talk) 03:57, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
 * "Caribbean islands" is a far less common construction than "islands of the Caribbean". A Google Books search reveals only about 366,000 hits for "Caribbean islands". Neelix (talk) 15:46, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
 * This title is wp:ndesc, not wp:commonname. Anyway, wp:commonname doesn't mean "most google hits wins", only that it is a factor to take into account. walk victor falktalk 01:16, 27 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Support List of Caribbean islands per WP:CONCISE. walk victor falktalk 01:16, 27 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Support the counterproposal, oppose the original. Red Slash 05:24, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Potential misspellings ?
"islans" ?66.74.176.59 (talk) 19:38, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Florida Key islands
Based on the article mentioning that the Caribbean Sea is a broad based term, and the fact that the Bahamas is included within the list, It might be prudent to add the entire Florida Key islands set. I will research a bit more to conculsively determine if this should be added to the list. Gizziiusa (talk) 08:11, 22 March 2016 (UTC)gizziiusa

Also in List of Caribbean islands by area, I don't know why Key West is included in the list, while other islands like Stock Island, Key Largo (to name a few) are not included. It questions me that for example Key Largo is larger than some islands listed (&gt;5 sq km) there. Please help. - &#9993; Hello World! 18:24, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Dominica
There a few tiny islands off the eastern coast, however I've been unable to find their names online.

See: http://www.orangesmile.com/common/img_city_maps/dominica-island-map-0.jpg

Sdrawkcab (talk) 20:20, 29 June 2019 (UTC)sdrawkcab

Convention
I am using the following convention when building this page:
 * 1) Each country or territory should include a Main template with links to the List of islands of and Category:Islands of.
 * 2) If there is a separate List of islands of country, then only islands with articles should be listed on the page.
 * 3) If there is not a separate List of islands of country, then this page would include all known islands. If the list gets to big, then a separate page should be used.
 * 4) Coordinates from the GeoNames database should be include for each island. If there is no coordinate in GeoNames, then Google Maps should be explored to see if the island exists.
 * 5) subheadings should not include links, per WikiPedia style.
 * 6) A few maps and images helps to enhance the presentation of the page.

By including coordinates a map of all islands using GeoGroup can be used. The coordinates help in confirming the island and its country. If others have suggestions, please discuss on the talk page.

WikiProject Caribbean Talk to G Moore 15:19, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Rearrange/re-title Kingdom of Netherlands section?
I originally linked to this page from the Caribbean section of the page for Lists_of_islands_of_the_Americas. There, the link reads "List of islands of the Netherlands Antilles." I'm not sure why someone decided to divide the Netherlands list in two.

Research on Wikipedia leads me to think that all of the islands currently listed under the Netherlands heading are administrative territories of the Netherlands; that they all are islands in the Antilles; that at one time the Dutch administered them collectively as the Netherlands Antilles, and that since the Dutch dissolved that administrative unit, people still reference the islands collectively as the Dutch Caribbean or Caribbean Netherlands (as the second portion of the list now shows).

My suggestions: change "Kingdom of the Netherlands" section title (and the link name on the Islands of the Americas page) to "Caribbean Netherlands" or "Dutch Caribbean." Then, rearrange the Dutch islands list here to put all six island clusters in alpha order and to eliminate the interrupting subtitle. I can make these edits, but hesitate to do so completely of my own volition. Allgotterer (talk) 21:35, 14 July 2022 (UTC)