The Lesser Antilles are a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea. They are distinguished from the large islands of the Greater Antilles to the west. They form an arc which begins east of Puerto Rico and swings south through the Leeward and Windward Islands almost to South America and then turns west along the Venezuelan coast as far as Aruba. Barbados is isolated about 100 miles east of the Windwards.

The Caribbean is a subregion of the Americas that includes the Caribbean Sea and its islands, some of which are surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some of which border both the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean; the nearby coastal areas on the mainland are sometimes also included in the region. The region is south-east of the Gulf of Mexico and Northern America, east of Central America, and north of South America.