ABSTRACT
The insular Caribbean region is centered on the islands of the Caribbean Sea, bordered by North, Central, and South America and the Atlantic Ocean, with a total landmass of about 235,700 square kilometers and a current population of about 30 million (map 11). According to some views, the region also includes circum-Caribbean areas, the tropical lowlands bordering the Caribbean Sea. (Those areas are treated separately in this volume.) Because of ecological and sociocultural similarities, especially an African presence, it may even be argued that the circum-Caribbean area reaches down the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of South America and up to southern Florida and the mid-Atlantic island of Bermuda.
