Martinique

Martinique
Martinique flag	Martinique coat of arms
Basic data
Official language	French
main place	Fort-de-France
surface	1,128 km²
population	372,594 (January 1, 2017)
Population density	330.3 inhabitants / km²
Department	Martinique (972)
Arrondissements	4th
Community associations	3
Cantons	no
Communities	34
prefect	Laurent Prévost
President of the Regional Council	Alfred Marie-Jeanne
President of the General Council	Josette Manin
currency	Euro (EUR)
Time zone	UTC − 4
Internet TLD	.mq
prefix	+596
cards

Martinique [ maʀtiˈnik ] (Martinique- Creole Matinik or Matnik ) is an island in the Caribbean . It belongs to the Lesser Antilles and the Leeward Islands . In the language of the indigenous people , the island was called Madinina (flower island), this name is still often used by the locals today. As an overseas department and region of France, Martinique is a fully integrated part of the French state and thus part of the European Union .

geography

Tropical rainforest near the town of Fond St. Denis

Martinique lies between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, 25 km south of Dominica and 37 km north of St. Lucia . It is approximately 6,850 km from Paris and 3,150 km from New York and 440 km off the coast of Venezuela .

The island has a length of 73 km and a width of 39 km. The coastline is around 350 km long. The island is mountainous. In the north of the island is the Montagne Pelée volcano , which has a height of 1,397 m.

9.4% of the island's land area is urbanized. Agriculture is practiced on 11.3% of the area.

climate

The climate is tropical and the rainy season lasts from June to October. The north is humid with lush vegetation. In the south, the climate is drier, and this is where most of the tourist destinations are located. The mean air temperatures in January and February are between min. 21 ° C and max. 27 ° C, in August and September between min. 24 ° C and max. 30 ° C. The months of June to November are characterized by high humidity. February has an average of 12 rainy days, July 22.

The water temperature can exceed 28 ° C in July to October and is not below 26 ° C in February either.

Cyclones can occur between June and November .

Climate diagram of Fort-de-France 1941–1970

Climate diagram from Le Lamentin 1961–1990

population

About 80% of the population is of African origin. 15% of the residents are of Indian or Afro-Indian origin (called “coolies” in Martinique), mostly in the east of the island. About 5% of Martinique's residents are of European descent. This group includes the whites born in Martinique, who descend from the colonial upper class and are called Béké . They can be traced back to around 30 families. All people born in Martinique, both white and black, are called Creoles . In addition, European immigrants from the metropolis (France) and French civil servants posted to Martinique live on the island. Due to the very high standard of living in regional comparison, Martinique - like the other French departments of Guadeloupe and French Guiana - also attracts immigrants from the region, especially from Haiti .

85% of the population are Roman Catholic ( Archdiocese of Saint-Pierre et Fort-de-France ), 10.5% Protestant (mainly Adventists ). 0.5% each profess Islam and Hinduism .

The official language is French . However, the mother tongue of the majority of the population is Martinique Creole, a French Creole language .

Population development

year	population
1950	222.002
1960	281,622
1970	325.011
1980	325.454
1990	358,449
2000	387.004
2010	394.910
2017	384,896

Source: UN

history

Map from 1760

Former town hall of Fort-de-France

Statue of Joséphine de Beauharnais

First settlements can be up to 4000 BC. Be proven. Around 100 BC The Arawak colonized the island from the Orinoco region in Venezuela. The Caribs followed in the 10th century . Christopher Columbus was the first European to discover Martinique on June 15, 1502 on his fourth voyage to Europe. He went ashore at what is now the municipality of Carbet. The island was colonized by France in 1635 by Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc on behalf of the Compagnie des îles d'Amérique founded by Richelieu and since then has remained in French possession except for three brief periods of foreign occupation. In 1648 the Compagnie des îles d'Amérique went bankrupt, after which the island was sold to Jacques Dyel du Parquet , nephew of Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc. He founded Fort-de-France and planted sugar cane for the first time, which led to an initial economic boom. By 1660, almost the entire native population was exterminated.

Through the establishment of the French East India Company by Jean-Baptiste Colbert in 1664, Martinique possession of the French crown was. During the Second Anglo-Dutch War , France was allied with the Netherlands - an English fleet repeatedly attacked French settlements on Martinique and defeated a French squadron at Saint-Pierre on July 6th. In the Third Anglo-Dutch War , in which France fought with England against the Netherlands, Martinique was attacked on July 16, 1674 by the fleet of the Dutch admiral Michiel de Ruyter .

In 1685 the so-called Code Noir was passed, which confirmed slavery in the French colonies. In 1694 the Dominican Père Labat arrived. He was a missionary , ethnologist and writer; he introduced the windmills and improved rum distillation.

Thanks to the patronage of Madame de Pompadour , the economist and physiocrat Pierre-Paul Le Mercier de La Rivière was appointed director or governor of Martinique, during the period from 1759 to 1764 he had great economic successes there. He was wounded during the armed conflict with the British and was taken prisoner. From 1762 to 1763 Martinique was occupied by the British. On June 23, 1763, Joséphine , b. de Tascher de la Pagerie, who later became Napoleon's wife, was born in Trois-Îlets near Fort-de-France in Martinique. Her parents ran a sugar cane plantation there, which can still be viewed as a museum today. In Fort-de-France in the “La Savane” park there is a small statue of Joséphine, but since 1991 without a head, as it is unpopular with the population because of the renewed introduction of slavery in Martinique.

In 1783 there were about 60,000 slaves. From 1787 to 1802 a civil war broke out because of conflicts between plantation owners and traders, there was a slave revolt. In 1794, in the spirit of the French Revolution, the French Convention approved the abolition of slavery. This decision did not last long, however, because Napoleon reintroduced slavery in 1802. On May 22, 1848, slavery was finally abolished. Victor Schoelcher played an important role in this. Because of the shortage of labor on the plantations, Indians and Chinese were employed there from this time.

The Martinique hurricane of 1891 devastated the island in August of that year, and around 700 people lost their lives, but a decade later the island was hit by an even more serious natural disaster : on May 8, 1902, the volcano Mt. Pelée erupted . A pyroclastic flow resulted in more than 30,000 deaths. Only a shoemaker and a prison inmate survived in Saint-Pierre . At that time the city was the most economically important of Martinique because of the good roadstead. In 1946 Martinique became one of the French overseas departments ( Départements d'Outre-Mer / DOM ), which are politically considered part of the mother country. Martinique received four MPs and two senators. In 1972 Martinique became a region , a parallel status to the DOM. In 1983 the regional council was introduced through decentralization . 1958 there were autonomy movements. In 1999 the Martinique banana sparked a “trade war” between the US and Europe. In 2003, the dual status of Region and Department (DOM) was confirmed.

As in Guadeloupe , there was a general strike in Martinique in 2009 . It started on February 5th and ended in March. The trigger was the high cost of living. Opponents of the strikers were the "békés", the descendants of the former white slave owners , who still largely dominate the islands economically. The strikers were able to push through higher wages. However, some of the commitments were not kept.

In a referendum initiated by the French state on 10 January 2010 on more autonomy for the département, 79% of those who voted voted against.

Culture

There is a strong tradition of dance and music on the island. The dances Biguine, Zouk , Quadrille and Gwo Ka, which are typically Creole, are danced . Especially at the time of the island's carnival there is a lot of dancing with decorated processions across the island.

Another cultural highlight of Martinique is the regatta Tour des Yoles , where small boats are increasingly used.

politics

Martinique is a French overseas region and a French overseas department with the department number 972.

As local authorities, the region and the department are responsible for the same territory, but have separate institutions - the regional council ( conseil régional ) and the general council ( conseil général ) of the département with 45 members - which exercise their respective powers independently of one another.

The prefect acts as the representative of the central government . Martinique sends four representatives to the French National Assembly and two to the Senate .

As a fully integrated part of the French state, Martinique is also part of the European Union . The euro is the legal tender as in the French heartland.

Administrative division

Arrondissement	Cantons	Communities	Residents January 1, 2017	Area km²	Density of population / km²	Code INSEE
Fort-de-France	-	4th	000000000156079.0000000000156.079	170.99	000000000000913.0000000000913	9721
La Trinité	-	10	000000000077532.000000000077,532	337.64	000000000000230.0000000000230	9722
Le Marin	-	12	000000000116168.0000000000116.168	409.14	000000000000284.0000000000284	9723
Saint-Pierre	-	8th	000000000022815.000000000022,815	210.26	000000000000109.0000000000109	9724
Martinique department	-	34	000000000372594.0000000000372,594	1,128.03	000000000000330.0000000000330	972

Arrondissements in Martinique

Associations of municipalities in Martinique

Martinique is divided into four arrondissements and 34 parishes . Until 2015, Martinique was also divided into 45 constituencies ( cantons ), this level was abolished in 2015. See also:

Infrastructure

The island has one airport, the Aéroport International Martinique Aimé Césaire in Lamentin ( IATA airport code : FDF). The flight time from Paris-Orly to Martinique is approx. 8 hours 30 minutes and back approx. 8 hours. There are other direct flights to and from Brussels, Guadeloupe, Cayenne, St. Martin, Montreal (Canada) and Miami (USA). A few other intra-Caribbean routes are also served.

The road network is excellent and some of it has four lanes. Some side streets are very curvy with some steep gradients, so that the achievable average speeds are relatively low, especially since traffic jams occur regularly.

There is no railroad in Martinique. However, light railways were operated on several sugar cane plantations until the 1970s . With Le Train des Plantations there is now a museum - narrow-gauge railway in Sainte-Marie .

Regular ferries connect Martinique with St. Lucia, Dominica and Guadeloupe.

economy

For the year 2009 INSEE has 402,499 inhabitants and Eurostat shows a gross domestic product of € 7.753 billion for Martinique. This corresponds to € 16,900 (purchasing power standard) per inhabitant.

The gross domestic product (GDP) of Martinique was € 4.48 billion in 1995 and thus € 11,990 per inhabitant (France € 19,360). This means that Martinique has the highest GDP of all five French overseas departments and of all Caribbean countries. In comparison with the GDP of the EU, expressed in purchasing power standards, Martinique achieved an index of 73.4 (EU-25: 100) (2003).

7.6% of employees work in the primary sector , 17.5% in the secondary and 74.9% in the tertiary sector. In 2017 the unemployment rate was 17.8%.

Bananas account for 40% of export revenues and are therefore the most important export good. 80% of those employed in agriculture work in the cultivation of bananas. Cane sugar , rum and pineapple are other important agricultural products.

The secondary sector is mainly covered by two companies, the French electricity company Electricité de France and the Société Anonyme de la Raffinerie des Antilles .

The tertiary sector consists mainly of trade and tourism industries. Tourism contributes 7% of GDP. Around 80.1% of the tourists come from France, 5.0% from Europe (excluding France), 10.4% from the Caribbean, 3.1% from the USA and 1.4% from the rest of the world.

Personalities

Wendie Renard at the Women's World Cup in July 2011

Alexandre de Beauharnais (1760–1794), President of the National Assembly
Joséphine de Beauharnais (1763–1814), Empress of the French
Pierre Alexandre le Camus (1774–1824), Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of Westphalia
Leo Dupont , (1797-1876), lawyer of the Catholic Church with the title venerable honored
René Maran (1887–1960), writer
Aimé Césaire (1913–2008), writer and politician
Joseph Zobel (1915–2006), author and poet
Frantz Fanon (1925–1961), psychiatrist, politician and writer
Édouard Glissant (1928–2011), writer and philosopher
Michel Sardaby (* 1935), jazz pianist and composer
Patrick Chamoiseau (* 1953), writer
Guy Modeste (1954-2018), football player
Joël Abati (* 1970), handball player
Grégory Privat (* 1984), jazz musician
Malick Bolivard (* 1987), football player
Anthony Modeste (* 1988), French soccer player with roots in Martinique
Axel Witsel (* 1989), Belgian soccer player with roots in Martinique
Wendie Renard (* 1990), soccer player
Emmanuel Rivière (* 1990), football player