The Bahamas are an island nation in the Atlantic Ocean and part of the West Indies. They are located southeast of the United States, northeast of Cuba and be counted geographically to Central America. Of the more than 700 Bahamian islands, only 30 are inhabited. The archipelago was named by the Spanish conquerors. They named the waters surrounding the islands of Baja Mar (Spanish for 'shallow sea'), which later became Bahamas. Since 1973, the Bahamas are independent from the United Kingdom, formally but is still Queen Elizabeth II, head of state of the former Crown Colony.
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The Bahamas are made up of more than 2,400 islands and coral reefs, called cays, together. In many cases, two islands or cays is just a few centimeters deep inlet of each other. Therefore, the numbers vary depending on whether two islands or an island are counted with an easy set underwater land bridge in this case. The Bahamas extending from the southeast coast of the United States along the northeast coast of Cuba to the North West Coast of Turks and Caicos with a north-south extent of about 650 km and an east-west width of up to 750 km. The islands are divided into the two most heavily populated New Providence and Grand Bahama and in the so-called Out Islands or Family Islands. The highest point is Mount Alvernia in the Bahamas with 63 m on Cat Iceland, the area's largest island is Andros Island at 5,957 km ². Although the Bahamas lie exclusively in the Atlantic, they are numbered among the Caribbean.
By far the two most important cities are the capital of the Bahamas Nassau and Freeport. In both living together for more than three quarters of the population of the Bahamas. Nassau, with its more than 200,000 inhabitants, by far the largest city of the island nation.
The Bahamas have a subtropical climate, because they are cooled by the air systems of the North American continent. In summer the average temperature is around 28 ° C, in winter lets the warm Gulf Stream (water temperatures 24-29 ° C), the temperature rarely drops below 20 ° C. Annual mean temperature is 26 ° C.
