Coordinates: 14°44′30″N 61°10′33″W / 14.7417°N 61.1758°W
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Commune of Saint-Pierre |
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| Saint-Pierre | |
| Location | |
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| Location of the commune (in red) within Martinique | |
| Administration | |
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| Country | France |
| Region | Martinique |
| Department | Martinique |
| Arrondissement | Saint-Pierre |
| Canton | Saint-Pierre (chief town) |
| Mayor | Raphaël Martine (2008–2014) |
| Statistics | |
| Elevation | 0–1,397 m (0–4,600 ft) |
| Land area1 | 38.72 km2 (14.95 sq mi) |
| Population2 | 4,581 (2006) |
| - Density | 118 /km2 (310 /sq mi) |
| Miscellaneous | |
| INSEE/Postal code | 97225/ 97250 |
| 1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries. | |
| 2 Population sans doubles comptes: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once. | |
Saint-Pierre was the former primary city of France's Caribbean département d'outre-mer of Martinique, founded in 1635 by Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc. It was never the capital except in an economic sense.
It was destroyed on 8 May 1902 when the volcano Mount Pelée erupted, killing over 30,000 people, which was the entire population of the town, as well as people from neighboring villages who had taken refuge in the supposedly safe city, save two men - a prisoner by the name of Louis-Auguste Sylbaris, who later toured the world with the Barnum and Bailey Circus, and Léon Compère-Léandre, a man who lived at the edge of the city. Legend (erroneously) has it that the town's doom was forecast by loud groaning noises from within the volcano, but the mayor of the town had it blocked off to prevent people from leaving during an election. This story appears to have originated with one of the island's newspapers which was published by a political opponent of the governor, and has no basis in fact. Actually, there was considerable eruptive activity in the two weeks prior to the fatal blast, but since the phenomenon of the nuée ardente (i.e., pyroclastic flow) was not yet understood, the danger was perceived to be from lava flows which it was believed would be stopped by two valleys between the volcano and the city. Larger details of the eruption and results may be read in the Mount Pelée entry.
The city of Saint-Pierre was never restored as before, though some villages later were build some decades later on its place.
At the time and currently the capital of Martinique is Fort-de-France.
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Demographics
As of the census of 1999, the population was 4,453. The 2006 official population is 4,581[1].
See also
References
External links
- Mérimée database - Cultural heritage (French)
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Saint-Pierre, Martinique |
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