French West Indies

Hispaniola is an island in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean, located between Cuba and Puerto Rico. It is the most populous island in the West Indies and the second-largest by land area, after Cuba. Covering an area of , it is divided into two separate sovereign countries: the Spanish–speaking Dominican Republic () to the east and the French and Haitian Creole–speaking Haiti () to the west. The only other divided island in the Caribbean is Saint Martin, which is shared between France () and the Netherlands (). At the time of the European arrival of Christopher Columbus, Hispaniola was home

The Taíno were the Indigenous peoples in most of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas. Their culture has been continued today by their descendants and by Taíno revivalist communities. They were the first New World peoples encountered by non-Norse Europeans. Part of the Arawak group of Indigenous peoples in the Americas, the Taíno are also referred to as Island Arawaks or Antillean Arawaks.

French territories in the Caribbean