Lesser Antilles

Lesser Antilles Kleine Antillen (Dutch) Petites Antilles (French) Antiyas Minores (Papiamento) Antillas Menores (Spanish) Tibannzil Lézantiy (Saint Lucian Creole French)
Region
Location within the Caribbean (black outline)
Map of the Lesser Antilles
Coordinates: 14°N 61°W
Region	Caribbean
Island states	24 Trinidad and Tobago Antigua and Barbuda Aruba (NL) Barbados Bonaire (NL) British Virgin Islands (UK) Curaçao (NL) Dominica Grenada Federal Dependencies of Venezuela (VE) Guadeloupe (FR) Martinique (FR) Montserrat (UK) Nueva Esparta (VE) Saba (NL) Saint Barthélemy (FR) Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Martin (FR) Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Sint Eustatius (NL) Sint Maarten (NL) / Spanish Virgin Islands (PR) Anguilla (UK) United States Virgin Islands (US)
Largest city	Willemstad
Area
• Total	14,364 km2 (5,546 sq mi)
Population  (2009)
• Total	3,949,250
• Density	274.9/km2 (712/sq mi)
Demonym	Lesser Antillean
Time zone	UTC−4 (AST)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−3 (ADT)

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The Lesser Antilles is a group of islands at the edge of the Caribbean Sea, forming part of the West Indies in the Caribbean region of the Americas. They are distinguished from the larger islands of the Greater Antilles to the west. They form an arc which begins east of Puerto Rico at the archipelago of the Virgin Islands, swings southeast through the Leeward and Windward Islands towards South America, and turns westward through the Leeward Antilles along the Venezuelan coast.

Most of the islands are part of a long, partially volcanic island arc between the Greater Antilles and the continent of South America. The islands form the eastern boundary of the Caribbean Sea where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. Together, the Lesser Antilles and the Greater Antilles make up the Antilles. The Antilles together with the Lucayan Archipelago are collectively known as the West Indies.

Compared to the Greater Antilles, which was settled by several peoples, including the Taíno, the islands' dominant Indigenous peoples were the Kalinago. The boundary set between them is known as the "poison arrow curtain," named after the Kalinago's favoured weapon for fending off Europeans that came to conquer the islands in the 16th century.

The archipelago is politically divided into eight sovereign states—all of which were formerly part of the British Empire—and 17 non-sovereign, partly self-governing dependencies of France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, or Venezuela.

A map of the Lesser Antilles, 1780