{"id":342,"date":"2018-05-28T04:00:01","date_gmt":"2018-05-28T04:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/?p=342"},"modified":"2018-09-28T01:18:59","modified_gmt":"2018-09-28T01:18:59","slug":"half-island-saint-martin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/half-island-saint-martin\/","title":{"rendered":"Half An Island – Saint Martin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Of all the constituent territories, or collectivities, that make up Overseas France<\/a>,<\/p>\n

\"\"
Overseas France Present Day<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

the half-island of Saint Martin, in the eastern Caribbean Sea, is the smallest.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Saint Martin Regional Map<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is inaccurate to say that the island is split in half between French Saint Martin and Dutch Sint Marteen because the French “half” actually contains about 60% of the total land mass, or a whopping 20 square miles.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Saint Martin Political Map<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The population however is split more or less evenly.\u00a0 Many Americans and Europeans are familiar with the Dutch half which has a very large airport and a very well developed tourist infrastructure (before the ravages of Hurricane Irma in 2017).\u00a0 Despite the proper name in Dutch, most Americans refer to Sint Marteen as St. Martin and that is the name by which this tourist haven is mostly known.\u00a0 Ironically, the portion that actually is properly called Saint Martin sees comparatively few tourists.<\/p>\n

The island of Saint Martin was first discovered, as so many Caribbean islands were, by Christopher Columbus, who may, or may not, have actually landed on the island.\u00a0 In any event, the sighting took place on the feast day for Saint Martin of Tours<\/a>, and thus the name of the feast day was given to the newly sighted land.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Saint Martin Island Topo Map<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If the island was populated at all at the time of discovery, it would have been populated by the Carib<\/a> people who had previously displaced the more peaceful Arawak<\/a> people.\u00a0 A lack of fresh water would have made permanent settlement difficult.\u00a0 Originally the attraction for the European powers, aside from bragging rights and denying territory to other nations, was salt collected from salt pans on the island.<\/p>\n

The Dutch were the first to arrive with any serious intention of staying, on the 1620s, although the Spanish returned, briefly, in 1633.\u00a0 By 1648 the French and the Dutch agreed to divide the island and the manner in which this was accomplished is the matter of folklore and tall tales with no reliable historical record existing.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Saint Martin is the only island thus divided by two colonial powers.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Saint Martin and Sint Marteen Border Marker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cyprus<\/a> remains divided but one half of the island is operated as an independent nation.\u00a0 The French and British jointly administered the New Hebrides Islands<\/a>, now the independent nation of Vanuatu<\/a>, but there was no boundary line on any island or area, instead the entire island group was jointly, if confusingly, administered by both nations.\u00a0 Saint Martin stands unique in terms of being an island divided into separate overseas territories of European powers.<\/p>\n

The main town on Saint Martin is Marigot<\/a>, although the town is small as the entire population of French Saint Martin is just over 36,000.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Marigot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Given the small size and limited fresh water resources, agriculture has never been a big part of the Saint Martin economy.\u00a0 Instead, as is certainly also the case with the Dutch Sint Marteen, tourism is the focus of the Saint Martin economy with some relatively small portion of the annual 1 million or more visitors a year arriving on the Dutch side of the island visiting the French side.\u00a0 There is an airport on the French side,\u00a0L’Esp\u00e9rance Airport<\/a>,<\/p>\n

\"\"
L’Esp\u00e9rance Airport<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

but this small airport is only able to accept regional planes arriving from nearby islands whereas the much larger Princess Juliana Airport<\/a> on Sint Marteen is capable of receiving the largest aircraft in use today including accommodating direct arrivals from Europe and North America.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Princess Juliana Airport<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The main attraction for tourists of the French side versus the Dutch side is that the French side allows nude sunbathing.\u00a0 In addition, the clothing options, ironically, are considered to be higher end on the French side.\u00a0 The availability of French cuisine is also a draw for some visitors.\u00a0 French speaking tourists may prefer the French side although most islanders preferentially speak a local patois as well as English in order to work in the tourist industries.<\/p>\n

As is true of all of the constituent territories of Overseas France, the official flag of Saint Martin is the standard French tri-color.<\/p>\n

\"\"
French Flag<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, local variations exist<\/p>\n

\"\"
Flag of Saint Martin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

including the one flown from our flagpole today.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Saint Martin Flag on Our Flagpole<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Join us next time as we visit another island component of Overseas France, much farther to the north and even more obscure than Saint Martin.\u00a0 A final hint: it is the last French outpost in North America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interestingly, Saint Martin is the only island thus divided by two colonial powers.\u00a0 Cyprus remains divided but one half of the island is operated as an independent nation.\u00a0 The French and British jointly administered the New Hebrides Islands, now the independent nation of Vanuatu, but there was no boundary line on any island or area, instead the entire island group was jointly, if confusingly, administered by both nations.\u00a0 Saint Martin stands unique in terms of being an island divided into separate overseas territories of European powers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[32,5,27,11,6,7,29],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.smoketreemanor.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}