
Fishing boats Jamaica. Credit
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Jamaica is an island
nation of the Greater Antilles, 240 kilometres (150 mi) in
length and as much as 85 kilometres (50 mi) in width situated
in the Caribbean Sea. It is 635 kilometres (391 mi) east of
the Central American mainland, 150 kilometres (93 mi) south
of Cuba, and 180 kilometres (112 mi) west of the island of
Hispaniola, on which Haiti and the Dominican Republic are situated.
Its indigenous Arawakan-speaking Taíno
inhabitants named the island Xaymaca, meaning either the "Land
of Springs," or the "Land of Wood and Water." Formerly
a Spanish possession known as Santiago, then the British West
Indies Crown colony of Jamaica. It is the third most populous
Anglophone country in the Americas, after the United States
and Canada. Jamaica is the largest English speaking island
in the Caribbean. |