Undated: (Greater Antilles, the Four Largest Caribbean Islands of Cuba, the Island of Haiti, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico, Comprising Ninety Percent of the Regio…

Undated: (Greater Antilles, the Four Largest Caribbean Islands of Cuba, the Island of Haiti, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico, Comprising Ninety Percent of the Region’s Land Mass and Distinguished From the Lesser Antilles by Their Continental Rock Composition): The Greater Antilles are the four largest islands of the Caribbean: Cuba, the island of Haiti (shared with the Dominican Republic), Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. Together they account for roughly ninety percent of the total land mass in the region. Geologically, they are composed of continental rock, unlike the volcanic and coral islands of the Lesser Antilles to the east. Small neighboring islands like the Caymans are sometimes grouped with them. The distinction matters historically because it was the Greater Antilles that bore the heaviest weight of European colonization, the largest plantation economies, and the most intensive systems of enslaved labor in the Western Hemisphere.