Saint-Martin

The island's shared story — the Arawak and Kalinago inhabitants, Columbus's 1493 naming, the 1648 Treaty of Concordia that split it between France and the Netherlands, the salt pans and small plantations worked by enslaved Africans, abolition on the French side in 1848, and the mid-twentieth-century tourism boom — is set out on the Sint Maarten page. Saint Martin/Sint Maarten remains the smallest inhabited landmass in the world divided between two nations.

The French side was long governed as part of Guadeloupe, far to the south. In 2003 its residents voted to separate, and in 2007 Saint-Martin — together with Saint-Barthélemy — became its own French overseas collectivity, with an elected territorial council and a degree of fiscal autonomy, while remaining part of France and the European Union and keeping the euro.

In September 2017 Hurricane Irma, a Category 5 storm, struck the island head-on, causing severe damage and several deaths on the French side, wrecking homes, schools, and the electricity network. Reconstruction, funded and directed from Paris, has been slow and politically contentious, and parts of the territory still show the scars.

French is the language of administration and schooling, but English is the island's common tongue, reflecting a population drawn from across the Caribbean — a large share of Haitian, Dominican, and wider West Indian origin, alongside metropolitan French residents. Society is predominantly Christian.

Carnival on the French side runs before Lent, while the Dutch side holds its own after Easter, and Saint-Martin's Day on 11 November is marked on both halves of the island. Grand Case has a strong reputation for food, and the roadside lolos — barbecue shacks that grill over half-drums — are a local institution.

About 32,000 people live on the French side, most within a short drive of Marigot, the capital, on the lagoon. As French and EU citizens, many move to mainland France or Guadeloupe for study and work. The economy is almost entirely tourism — stopover visitors, villas, day-trippers from the Dutch side and its cruise port, and yachting in the shared Simpson Bay Lagoon — supported by French public spending and welfare.

There is no immigration control on the island's internal border, only a sign and a change in road markings, so daily life flows freely between the two halves. The cost of living is high, nearly everything is imported, and the recovery from Irma is still shaping neighbourhoods and services.

The French side is the island's dining draw. Grand Case, a single street of bistros and grills along its beach, has long billed itself as the "gastronomic capital of the Caribbean", while its lolos — open-air shacks grilling ribs, chicken, snapper, and lobster — are cheaper and just as loved. Creole cooking (accras, colombo curry, boudin, féroce of avocado and saltfish), fresh seafood, and French cheese, charcuterie, and wine fill out the table. Local rums and the guavaberry liqueur shared with the Dutch side are the usual drinks.

The French side has the island's best-known beaches: the long, beach-club-lined Orient Bay, with a naturist section at its southern end; quieter Happy Bay and Friar's Bay, reached on foot; and the sheltered family beach at Anse Marcel. Boats run to the tiny nature-reserve island of Pinel and to Green Cay and Tintamarre for snorkelling.

Marigot has a waterfront market on Wednesdays and Saturdays, the ruined hilltop Fort Louis with a view over the lagoon and across to Anguilla, and a small heritage museum. Pic Paradis, the island's 424-metre high point, sits on the French side, with rainforest trails and the Loterie Farm zip lines, pools, and activity park below it. The Butterfly Farm and diving on the reefs and the Proselyte wreck round out the list, and the French-side Carnival and the Grand Case street evenings are the main events.