Caribbean Netherlands

National Flag

Geography & Borders

This country has no land borders.

Introduction & Background

The Caribbean Netherlands910 (Template:Lang-nl, Template:IPA-nl) are the three special municipalities of the Netherlands that are located in the Caribbean Sea. They consist of the islands of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba,11nb 1 although the term "Caribbean Netherlands" is sometimes used to refer to all of the islands in the Dutch Caribbean. In legislation, the three islands are also known as Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba or the BES islands (an acronym of their names). The islands are currently classified as public bodies in the Netherlands and as overseas countries and territories of the European Union; thus, EU law does not automatically apply.

Bonaire (including the islet of Klein Bonaire) is one of the Leeward Antilles and is located close to the coast of Venezuela. Sint Eustatius and Saba are in the main Lesser Antilles group and are located south of Sint Maarten and northwest of Saint Kitts and Nevis. The Caribbean Netherlands has a population of 25,157 as of January 2019.4