Hotels Jamaica

Hotels Jamaica

The island can be a super place to go for a vacation or holiday. You may want to see the beaches or the mountians or the landscapes. You may want to see the cities or the culture or to study the area to go na business visit. A hotel in the nation can be a good idea You may want a luxury or cheap hotel.

Jamaica and the other islands of the Antilles evolved from an arc of ancient volcanoes. During periods of submersion, thick layers of limestone were laid down over the old igneous and metamorphic rock. In many places, the limestone is thousands of feet thick. The country can be divided into three landform regions: the eastern mountains, the central valleys and plateaus, and the coastal plains.

The coastline of Jamaica is one of many contrasts. The northeast shore is severely eroded by the ocean. There are many small inlets in the rugged coastline, but no coastal plain of any extent. A narrow strip of plains along the northern coast offers calm seas and white sand beaches. Behind the beaches is a flat raised plain of uplifted coral reef.

The southern coast has small stretches of plains lined by black sand beaches. These are backed by cliffs of limestone where the plateaus end. In many stretches with no coastal plain, the cliffs drop 300 meters straight to the sea. In the southwest, broad plains stretch inland for a number of kilometers. The Black River courses seventy kilometers through the largest of these plains. The swamplands of the Great Morass and the Upper Morass fill much of the plains. The western coastline contains the island's finest beaches.

The highest area is that of the Blue Mountains. These eastern mountains are formed by a central ridge of metamorphic rock running northwest to southeast from which many long spurs jut to the north and south. For a distance of over 3 kilometers, the crest of the ridge exceeds 1,800 meters. The highest point is Blue Mountain Peak at 7,402 feet (2,256 metres). The Blue Mountains rise to these elevations from the coastal plain in the space of about sixteen kilometers, thus producing one of the steepest general gradients in the world. In this part of the country, the old metamorphic rock reveals itself through the surrounding limestone. To the north of the Blue Mountains lies the strongly tilted limestone plateau forming the John Crow Mountains. This range rises to elevations of over 1,000 meters. To the west, in the central part of the country, are two high rolling plateaus: the Dry Harbour Mountains to the north and the Manchester Plateau to the south. Between the two, the land is rugged and here, also, the limestone layers are broken by the older rocks. Streams that rise in the region flow outward and sink soon after reaching the limestone layers.

The limestone plateau covers two-thirds of the country, so that karst formations dominate the island. Karst is formed by the erosion of the limestone in solution. Sinkholes, caves and caverns, disappearing streams, hummocky hills, and terra rosa (residual red) soils in the valleys are distinguishing features of a karst landscape; all these are present in Jamaica. To the west of the mountains is the rugged terrain of the Cockpit Country, one of the world's most dramatic examples of karst topography.

The Cockpit Country is pockmarked with steep-sided hollows, as much as 120 meters deep in places, which are separated by conical hills and ridges. On the north, the main defining feature is the fault-based "Escarpment", a long ridge that extends from Flagstaff in the west, through Windsor in the centre, to Campbells and the start of the Barbecue Bottom Road (B10). The Barbecue Bottom Road, which runs north-south, high along the side of a deep, fault-based valley in the east, is the only drivable route across the Cockpit Country. However, there are two old, historical trails that cross further west, the Troy Trail, and the Quick Step Trail, both of which are seldom used as of 2006 and difficult to find. In the southwest, near Quick Step, is the district known as the "Land of Look Behind," so named because Spanish horsemen venturing into this region of hostile runaway slaves were said to have ridden two to a mount, one rider facing to the rear to keep a precautionary watch. Where the ridges between sinkholes in the plateau area have dissolved, flat-bottomed basins or valleys have been formed that are filled with terra rosa soils, some of the most productive on the island. The largest basin is the Vale of Clarendon, eighty kilometers long and thirty-two kilometers wide. Queen of Spains Valley, Nassau Valley, and Cave Valley were formed by the same process.

Cities, towns and villages in Jamaica

Above Rocks, Accompong, Aeolus Valley, Airy Castle, Alligator Pond, Black River, Boscobel, Brown's Town Bull Bay Cattawood Springs Chapelton, Clarendon Park, Cotterwood Darliston Discovery Bay, Duckenfield, Ensom City Falmouth, Free Villages Green Island, Haddersfield, Kingston, Lacovia, Liguanea, Linstead, Lucea, Lucky Hill, Malvern, Mandeville, Mavis Banks, May Pen, Mona, Moneague, Montego Bay, Morant Bay, Nanny Town, Negril, New Kingston, Norbrook, Ocho Ríos, Petersfield, Port Antonio, Port Morant, Port Royal, Portmore, Richmond, Roxborough (Manchester), Runaway Bay, Sandy Bay, Santa Cruz, Savanna la-Mar, Spanish Town, Trenchtown, Whitehouse, Wood Hall

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