The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater Antilles, the Lesser Antilles, and the Lucayan Archipelago.^[4]

The subregion includes all the islands in the Antilles, plus The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands, which are in the North Atlantic Ocean. Nowadays, the term West Indies is often interchangeable with the term Caribbean, although the latter may also include some Central and South American mainland countries which have Caribbean coastlines, such as Belize, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana, and the Atlantic island nations of Trinidad and Tobago and Bermuda, both of which are geographically distinct from the three main island groups, but culturally related.

Exuma is a district of The Bahamas, consisting of over 365 islands, also called cays.

The largest of the cays is Great Exuma, which is 37 mi (60 km) in length and joined to another island, Little Exuma, by a small bridge. The capital and largest town in the district is George Town (population 1,437).^[1] It was founded 1793 and located on Great Exuma. Near the town, but on Little Exuma, the Tropic of Cancer runs across Pelican Beach lending it another name: Tropic of Cancer Beach. Its white sand and turquoise waters make it a world-famous destination. The entire island chain is 130 mi (209 km) long and 72 sq mi (187 km²) in area.^[2][3] Great Exuma island has an area of 61 sq mi (158 km²) while Little Exuma has an area of 11 sq mi (29 km²).^[4]

Between 2000 and 2010, the population of Exuma more than doubled, reflecting the construction of large and small resort properties and the related direct air traffic to Great Exuma from locations as distant as Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The population in 2010 was 6,928.^[1]

Samana Cay is a now -uninhabited island in the Bahamas believed by some researchers to have been the location of Christopher Columbus's first landfall in the Americas on October 12, 1492.^[1]

It is an islet in the eastern Bahamas, 22 miles (35 km) northeast of Acklins Island. About 10 miles (16 km) long and up to 2 miles (3 km) wide with an area of about 17 square miles (45 km²) it is bound by reefs. The verdant cay has long been uninhabited, but figurines, pottery shards, and other artifacts discovered there in the mid-1980s have been ascribed to Lucayan Indians, who lived on the cay around the time of Columbus's voyages.

The indigenous people of the island on which Columbus first landed called it "Guanahani." Samana Cay was first proposed to be Guanahani by Gustavus Fox in 1882,^[2] but the predominant theory gives the honour to San Salvador Island.^[3] However, in 1986, Joseph Judge of National Geographic Magazine made different calculations based on extracts from Columbus's logs and argued for Samana Cay as the location, but his methodology has also been criticised.^[4]

Samana was a name of apparent Lucayan origin (meaning "Small Middle Forest") used by the Spanish to designate one of the islands in the Bahamas. Granberry and Vesceliuus identify that island as the present-day Samana Cay.^[5]

Samana Cay had a permanent population during the first half of the 20th century, and the ruins of the settlement are visible on the south side of the island, near the western end. The island is now uninhabited, but residents of nearby Acklins Island visit occasionally to collect cascarilla bark, which grows in abundance on the island.