St Martin (island)

St Martin (island), island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, one of the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles chain, located between the islands of Anguilla and St Barthélemy. The northern 60 per cent of the island, called Saint-Martin, is a dependency of Guadeloupe, an overseas department of France; the southern 40 per cent, called Sint Maarten, is part of the Netherlands Antilles, an integral and autonomous part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The area of the French possession is almost 54 sq km (21 sq mi) and that of the Dutch section, 34 sq km (13 sq mi). However, there is no formal border between the two sides of the island; the boundary is marked by a single monument. Much of the island is covered in wooded hills, rising from the many white sandy beaches; in the west and south are lagoons and salt pans. Agriculture and industry are limited, but the tropical, breezy climate and natural beauty of St Martin attract many tourists. The main French town, Marigot, and the principal Dutch town, Philipsburg, are both free ports. French and Dutch are the official languages of St Martin, but English is widely used.

The island’s first inhabitants were Arawak, who named it Sualouiga, “land of salt”, after the island’s abundant deposits of the mineral. The Arawak were later replaced by the Carib. Christopher Columbus sighted the island in 1493, on November 11, the feast day of St Martin of Tours. Although he claimed it for Spain, it lay largely forgotten until the 1620s when Dutch settlers began extracting salt from the pans and exporting it back to Europe. The Spanish briefly drove the Dutch off the island, but abandoned it again in 1648. The Dutch and the French, sailing over from St Eustatius and St Kitts, respectively, simultaneously occupied the island. After some brief skirmishing they agreed, on March 23 of that year, to divide it, making St Martin the world’s smallest land mass divided between two governments. The establishment of tobacco and sugar plantations, worked by slave labour, brought wealth to the island; the abolition of the slavery in the mid-19th century precipitated more than a century of economic decline. Economic recovery began in the mid-20th century with the establishment of the free ports and development of tourism. Population: Dutch portion of the island (1994 estimate) 37,256; French portion (1990 estimate) 28,518.