The sound was named by John Strong in 1690 for Viscount Falkland, the name only later being applied to the archipelago and its two largest islands.
Islands in the Falkland Sound include Narrows Island, Great Island, and the Swan Islands. Settlements on it include Port San Carlos and San Carlos on East Falkland and Port Howard and Fox Bay on West Falkland.
The government barrack is a rather imposing structure in the middle of the town, as is the cathedral church to the east, built of stone and buttressed with brick.
The Falkland Islands consist entirely, so far as is known, of the older Palaeozoic rocks, Lower Devonian or Upper Silurian, slightly metamorphosed and a good deal crumpled and distorted, in the low grounds clay slate and soft sandstone, and on the ridges hardened sandstone passing into the conspicuous white quartzites.
The Falkland Islands are a crown colony, with a governor and executive and legislative councils.
Geologically, the Falkland Islands are a part of Patagonia in Argentina, being connected with the mainland by a raised submarine plateau.
The low-lying areas of the Falklands are composed of clay, slate, and soft sandstone, and the hills and ridges are formed of hard sandstone and white quartzite.
A lighthouse is maintained at Cape Pembroke, East Falkland, near Stanley (2001 population, 2,000), the chief town and main port.
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