Geography
The Cayman Islands consists of three small islands – Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman – which lie in the Western Caribbean. They are an outcropping of the Cayman Ridge, a range of submarine mountains extending from the Sierra Maestra range in Cuba running westward towards Belize.
Grand Cayman is the largest and most populated island; it is some 480 miles south of Miami, 150 miles south of Cuba and about 180 miles south west of Jamaica. Grand Cayman is approximately 22 miles long, from east to west, and a maximum of 8 miles wide. One of the most striking features is a shallow, reef-protected sound on the north side of the island, which is seven miles long by six miles wide, almost cutting the island in half.
Cayman Brac is a small island about 90 miles northeast of Grand Cayman; it is 12 miles long and a little over 1 mile wide. Little Cayman, 5 miles away from Cayman Brac, is only 10 miles long by 2 miles wide.
All three islands are extremely low-lying, with the highest point on Grand Cayman being only 60 feet. Although largely of limestone and therefore with only limited areas of fertile soil, Grand Cayman is quite heavily wooded, with a wide variety of trees and flowering plants and bushes.
History
The recorded history of the Islands began with the sighting in May 1503 of Cayman Brac and Little Cayman by Columbus during his fourth and last West Indian voyage. The large number of turtles found around the islands attracted ships of many nations for revictualling purposes, but no early settlement was made.
In 1655 Jamaica was captured from Spain by Britain and was ceded along with the Cayman Islands to the British Crown in 1670 by the Treaty of Madrid. The first settlers consisted largely of buccaneers, shipwrecked sailors and debtors. Serious settlement started early in the eighteenth century and the first grant of land was made in 1734.
Although the islands were well located for trade with passing sailships, as steam gradually replaced sail the islands became increasingly cut off from the outside world. This state of affairs continued until the era of air transportation in the 1960's.
