Dutch Caribbean

Willemstad, the capital of Curaçao and the largest city in the Dutch Caribbean

Dutch Caribbean Coast Guard cutter

The Dutch Caribbean refers to territories, colonies, and countries, both former and current, of the Dutch Empire and the Kingdom of the Netherlands that are located in the Lesser Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea.

Current territories comprise the islands of Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten, Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba. The contemporary term is sometimes also used for the Caribbean Netherlands, an entity since 2010 consisting of the three islands of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, which are special municipalities of the Netherlands.^[2][3]

History

All of the islands in the Dutch Caribbean were, at some point in their history, part of the colony of Curaçao and Dependencies (1815–1954); and then the constituent country of the Netherlands Antilles (1954−2010). The autonomy of the Netherlands Antilles island areas was specified in the Islands Regulation of the Netherlands Antilles.

The former Dutch colony of Suriname was not considered part of the Dutch Caribbean, although it was on the southern Caribbean in Northeastern South America.

The island of Aruba seceded from the Netherlands Antilles in 1986 to become a separate constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, leaving only five island territories within the Netherlands Antilles. This situation remained until the complete dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles as a unified political entity in 2010. In that year Curaçao and Sint Maarten became autonomous constituent countries within the Kingdom (like Aruba); while Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba became special municipalities of the Netherlands proper.

Geography

Currently, there are two main divisions in the Dutch Caribbean:

• those islands that have the status of being constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
• those islands that have the status of being special municipalities of the Netherlands alone, as distinct from the Kingdom in its entirety.

Constituent countries

There are three Caribbean islands that are countries (Dutch: landen) within the Kingdom of the Netherlands: Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten. The Netherlands is the fourth and largest constituent country in the Kingdom.

Sint Maarten comprises approximately one half of the island of Saint Martin. The northern half of the island – the Collectivity of Saint Martin – is an overseas territory of France.

Special municipalities

The three Caribbean islands that are special municipalities of the Netherlands alone: Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba. Collectively, these special municipalities of the Netherlands are also known as the "BES islands" or the Caribbean Netherlands.

Comparison

Grouping of islands

The islands have also been informally grouped in the following ways:

• ABC islands, for Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao;
• BES islands, for Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba;
• SSS islands, for Saba, Sint Eustatius, and Sint Maarten.

• 
  Map of the Dutch Caribbean islands.
• 
  Those countries and special municipalities of the Kingdom of the Netherlands that are located in the Caribbean (blue background) form the Dutch Caribbean.

References

External links

• Media related to Dutch Caribbean at Wikimedia Commons