The Lesser Antilles (also known as the Caribbees) are a long, partly volcanic island arc in the Caribbean Sea. Most of its islands form the eastern boundary of the Caribbean Sea with the Atlantic Ocean, with the remainder located in the southern Caribbean just north of South America. The Lesser Antilles and the Greater Antilles compose the Antilles (or the Caribbean in its narrowest definition), which together with the Lucayan Archipelago comprise the West Indies.
The islands of the Lesser Antilles are divided into three groups. The two main groups are the Windward Islands in the south and the Leeward Islands in the north. The Windward Islands are so called because they were more windward to sailing ships arriving in the New World than the Leeward Islands, given that the prevailing trade winds blow east to west. The trans-Atlantic currents and winds that provided the fastest route across the ocean brought these ships to the rough dividing line between the Windward and Leeward Islands.
The third group is the Leeward Antilles in the west. These consist of the Dutch islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao (known as the ABC islands) just off the coast of Venezuela, plus a group of Venezuelan islands.