The Cayman Islands are three peaks of an underwater mountain ridge known as the Cayman Trench, which rises 8000 feet from the ocean floor. The three islands are located in the Western Caribbean, near Jamaica and Cuba, and are approximately 480 miles south of Florida.
Grand Cayman is the largest of all three islands with an area of 76 square miles. The two sister islands, located 90 miles east of Grand Cayman are Cayman Brac, which has an area of 14 square miles, and Little Cayman, which has an area of 10 square miles.
The Cayman Islands were first discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1503. By 1670 they were captured, then ceded to England under the Treaty of Madrid. Cayman was governed as a single colony with Jamaica until 1962 when the Cayman Islands became a separate British Overseas Territory. Cayman remains a British Overseas Territory today.
As of July 2006 the population size represented by over 100 different nationalities had reached over 45,000. The majority of this population resides in Grand Cayman with only 2000 people on the Brac and 200 in Little Cayman.
Map of Grand Cayman
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