Physical Geography
Cuba is located 77 km (48 mi) west of Haiti across the Windward Passage, 21 km (13 mi) south of the Bahamas, 150 km (93 mi) south of Florida, 210 km (130 mi) east of Mexico, and 140 km (87 mi) north of Jamaica.
Cuba is the largest country by land area in the Caribbean. Its main island is the seventeenth-largest island in the world by land area. The island rises between the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. It is bordered on the north by the Straits of Florida, on the northeast by Nicholas Channel and the Old Bahamas Channel. The southern part is bounded by the Windward Passage and the Cayman Trench, while the southwest lies in the Caribbean Sea. To the west, it reaches to the Yucatan Channel, and the northwest is open to the Gulf of Mexico.
More than 4,000 islands and cays are found in the surrounding sea and bays. The southern coast includes such archipelagos as Jardines de la Reina and the Canarreos. The northeastern shore is lined by the Sabana-Camagüey Archipelago, which includes Jardines del Rey and is composed of approximately 2,517 cays and islands. The Colorados Archipelago is developed on the north-western coast.
See also: Islands of CubaRead more about this topic: Geography Of Cuba
Famous quotes containing the words physical and/or geography:
“But alas! I never could keep a promise. I do not blame myself for this weakness, because the fault must lie in my physical organization. It is likely that such a very liberal amount of space was given to the organ which enables me to make promises, that the organ which should enable me to keep them was crowded out. But I grieve not. I like no half-way things. I had rather have one faculty nobly developed than two faculties of mere ordinary capacity.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“At present cats have more purchasing power and influence than the poor of this planet. Accidents of geography and colonial history should no longer determine who gets the fish.”
—Derek Wall (b. 1965)