SSS islands

The location of the SSS islands in the Caribbean, from top to bottom Saint Martin, Saba, and Sint Eustatius

SSS-islands

The SSS islands consist of the three islands of the Lesser Antilles which are under Dutch sovereignty:

1. Saba
2. Sint Maarten
3. Sint Eustatius

Saint Martin Island contains both the country Sint Maarten, which is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the French overseas collectivity of Saint-Martin. The islands of Saba and Sint Eustatius are public bodies of the Netherlands.

The acronym is analogous to the ABC islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao, all of which were formerly part of the Netherlands Antilles.

History

Saint Martin was split in a Dutch and a French part in 1648. The Dutch part became a single Dutch colony in 1818 as Sint Eustatius and Dependencies when France returned its possessions after the Napoleonic Wars. This colony was merged with the colonies Curaçao and Dependencies (the ABC islands) and Suriname with a capital in Paramaribo. When this merge was partly reversed in 1845, the Dutch part of the SSS islands became part of Curaçao and Dependencies with Willemstad as capital. This colony became the Netherlands Antilles in 1952. The Dutch part of the SSS islands initially formed until 1983 the single "island area" (Dutch: eilandgebied, the main administrative division of the country, governed by an Island council) the Leeward islands (Dutch: de Bovenwindse eilanden).

See also

• ABC islands
• BES islands