Saint Martin travel guide

Saint Martin (French: Saint-Martin; Dutch: Sint Maarten) is an island in the northeast Caribbean Sea, approximately 300 km (190 mi) east of Puerto Rico. The 87 square kilometres (34 sq mi) island is divided roughly 60:40 between the French Republic (53 square kilometres (20 sq mi)) and the Kingdom of the Netherlands (34 square kilometres (13 sq mi)), but the Dutch part is more populated than the French part. The division dates to 1648. The northern French part comprises the Collectivity of Saint Martin and is an overseas collectivity of the French Republic. As part of France, the French part of the island is also part of the European Union. The southern Dutch part comprises Sint Maarten and is one of four constituent countries that form the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

On January 1, 2019, the population of the whole island was 73,777 inhabitants, with 41,177 living on the Dutch side and 32,489 on the French side. Note that the figure for the French side is based on censuses that took place after the devastation of Hurricane Irma in September 2017, whereas the figure for the Dutch side is only a post-censal estimate still based on the 2011 census. The first census since Hurricane Irma on the Dutch side of the island is scheduled to take place in October 2022. Population of the island on Jan. 1, 2017, before Hurricane Irma, was 75,869 (40,535 on the Dutch side, 35,334 on the French side).

The island's traditional pre-colonial name is Oualichi which means "the island of women".Collectively, the two territories are known as "Saint-Martin / Sint Maarten", or sometimes "SXM", the IATA identifier for Princess Juliana International Airport, the island's main airport. St. Martin (the French portion) received the ISO 3166-1 code MF in October 2007. In 2010, the Dutch part had its status changed to that of a country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands and was given the code SX.