Caribbean Travel Guides

Geography

Columbus described Jamaica as 'the fairest isle that eyes beheld; mountainous...all full of valleys and fields and plains'. Roughly ovoid in shape and lying 90 miles (145km) south of Cuba, it's the third-largest island in the Caribbean. Despite its relatively small size, Jamaica boasts an impressive diversity of terrain and vegetation, although few visitors venture far enough afield to experience it.

The rugged island is rimmed by a narrow coastal plain, pitted with bays everywhere but in the south, where broad flatlands cover extensive ruler-straight stretches. Most of the resorts huddle along the north coast, where the vegetation is lush and the beaches are white and sandy. The limestone interior is dramatically sculpted by deep vales and steep ridges, dominated by basket-of-eggs topography such as Cockpit Country, a virtually impenetrable tract pitted with bush-covered hummocks, vast sinkholes, underground caves and flat valley bottoms. The uplands rise gradually from the west, culminating in the Blue Mountains in the east, which are capped by Blue Mountains Peak at 7402ft (2220m).