Geography
Location: Caribbean, island in the Caribbean Sea, north of St. Lucia and south of Dominica
Geographic coordinates: 14°40′N 61°00′W / 14.667°N 61°W / 14.667; -61
Map references: Central America and the Caribbean
Area:
total: 1,100 square kilometres (420 sq mi)
land: 1,060 square kilometres (410 sq mi)
water: 40 square kilometres (15 sq mi)
Part of the archipelago of the Antilles, it is located in the Caribbean Sea, about 450 km northeast of the coast of South America, and about 700 km southeast of the Dominican Republic.
With the total area of 1100 km2 Martinique is the 3rd largest island in The Lesser Antilles after Trinidad and Guadeloupe. It stretches 70 km in length and 30 km in width. The highest point is the volcano of Mount Pelee (1397m). The last two major eruptive phases occurred in 1902: the eruption of May 8, 1902 destroyed Saint-Pierre and took 28,000 dead in 2 minutes; that of August 30, 1902 caused nearly 1,100 deaths, mostly in Morne-Red and Ajoupa-Bouillon.
The coast of Martinique is difficult for navigation of ships. The peninsula of Caravelle clearly separates the north-Atlantic and South Atlantic coast.
Read more about this topic: Martinique
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—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“The totality of our so-called knowledge or beliefs, from the most casual matters of geography and history to the profoundest laws of atomic physics or even of pure mathematics and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges on experience only along the edges. Or, to change the figure, total science is like a field of force whose boundary conditions are experience.”
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)