Why are the Caribbean islands called West Indies?

West Indies is the collective name that designates the islands which stretch out between North and South America and separate the Caribbean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean. It is believed that the first known explorers of the region— Christopher Columbus and his crew- named them thus because they mistook them for the eastern edge of Asia after setting out westward for India; so, in their perspective, these lands constituted, rather, some "West Indies'.

Nowadays, a distinction is sometimes made between its two larger subsets- "Greater Antilles", (encompassing Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico); and, "Lesser Antilles," which designates the rest , mostly the Leeward and Windward archipelagos.