The Caribbean Sea (Spanish: Mar Caribe; French: Mer des Caraïbes; Haitian Creole: Lamè Karayib; Jamaican Patois: Kiaribiyan Sii; Dutch: Caraïbische Zee; Papiamento: Laman Karibe) is an American Mediterranean Sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico and Central America to the west and south west, to the north by the Greater Antilles starting with Cuba, to the east by the Lesser Antilles, and to the south by the north coast of South America.