Antigua and Barbuda is an island nation located in the eastern Caribbean Sea on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean. This country has two major islands: Antigua and Barbuda. They are located in the middle of the Leeward Islands, roughly 17 degrees north of the equator. Antigua and Barbuda are part of the Lesser Antilles archipelago with ► Guadeloupe to the south, ► Montserrat to the southwest, ► Saint Kitts and Nevis to the west and ► Saint-Barthélemy, ► Saint Martin and ► Anguilla to the northwest.
Antigua and Barbuda is made up of Antigua, which, along with its satellite islets and rocks, is divided into six parishes; and two dependencies, the islands Barbuda and Redonda.
History maps
This section holds a short summary of the history of the area of present-day Antigua and Barbuda, illustrated with maps, including historical maps of former countries and empires that included present-day Antigua and Barbuda.
Antigua is first inhabited by the Siboney whose settlements date at least to 2400 BC. The Arawaks who originate in Venezuela and gradually migrate up the chain of islands now called the Lesser Antilles, succeed the Siboney. Christopher Columbus lands on the islands in 1493 naming the larger one Santa Maria de la Antigua. After Spanish and French attempts to settle on the island, England establishes in 1632 the colony of Antigua, which was from 1671 to 1816 and from 1833 to 1960 part the Leeward Islands. This is followed by internal self-government when Antigua becomes a part of the British West Indies in 1958. After the dissolution of the British West Indies in 1962, Antigua became a seperate British dependency, followed by the establishment in 1967 of the Associated State of Antigua. In 1981, Antigua became independent and was named Antigua and Barbuda.
Satellite maps
Satellite map
Notes and references
General remarks:
The WIKIMEDIA COMMONS Atlas of the World is an organized and commented collection of geographical, political and historical maps available at Wikimedia Commons. The main page is therefore the portal to maps and cartography on Wikimedia. That page contains links to entries by country, continent and by topic as well as general notes and references.
Every entry has an introduction section in English. If other languages are native and/or official in an entity, introductions in other languages are added in separate sections. The text of the introduction(s) is based on the content of the Wikipedia encyclopedia. For sources of the introduction see therefore the Wikipedia entries linked to. The same goes for the texts in the history sections.
Historical maps are included in the continent, country and dependency entries.
The status of various entities is disputed. See the content for the entities concerned.
The maps of former countries that are more or less continued by a present-day country or had a territory included in only one or two countries are included in the atlas of the present-day country. For example the Ottoman Empire can be found in the Atlas of Turkey.
