Capital: Fort-de-France
Population: 381 467 (1999)
Official language: French
Majority group: martinican Creole (96%)
Minority groups: French (4%) and guadeloupian, Haitian, Guianan, unities, Creole, etc.
Political system: French department of overseas (DOM)
Colonial language: French
Constitutional articles (language): art. 2 of the Republican Constitution of 1992.
Linguistic laws: all Republican linguistic laws of which the law n° 84-747 of August 2, 1984 relative to the competence between the regions of Guadeloupe, Guyana, Martinique and the Unity; the law n° 75-620 of July 11,1975 relative to the education; the law n° 84-52 of January 26, 1984 relative to the higher education; the orientation law n° 89-486 of July 10, 1989 consider the education; the decree n° 93-535 of March 27, 1993 carrying approval to the specification of the national Society’s missions and loads of the French overseas broadcasting and television (RFO).
The Martinique has a surface of 1.080 km2. It measures 80 km in its great length, and 39 km in its great width. The land rises gradually from the coastline to the centre and towards north where are regrouped the Pegs of the Carbet and the Peeled Mountain, the highest point of the island (1.397 m). This part of Martinique is also the kingdom of the surprising tropical forest.

I- Geographical situation:

Martinique is part of the French Antilles which constitutes, since 1946, as an overseas French department (i.e. a DOM). With a surface of 1100 km², measures 70-km of length and about 30-km of width, Martinique is the smallest of the overseas departments. Martinique, like Guadeloupe, is situated at the centre of the Small Antilles curve in the Caribbean Sea, with an equal distance to the Venezuela coasts and the island of Haiti (look at the regional card). Contrary to Guadeloupe which forms an archipelago of eight islands, Martinique constitutes only one island (look at the townships card). Martinique and Guadeloupe are separated (look at the regional card) one of the other by a non French island: the Dominique's island (of English language) named also "the Dominique". So, the two nearest neighbouring of Martinique are the Dominique's English-speaking islands (to the north) and of Saint Lucia (to the south). The Fort-de-France city is the administrative capital, but it also represents the economic centre of this overseas French department. We count only three important cities: as well as, Fort-de-France (94 050 inhabitants), these are the cities of The Lamentin (35 007 inhabitants) and of Schoelcher (20 815 inhabitants).
As a French department, Martinique belongs to the European Union within which it constitutes an «ultraperipheric area». For this reason, it benefits from "specific measures" which adapt the communal law while taking account the region’s particular characteristic and constraint. The French state is represented by the prefect established in Fort-de-France and three sub-prefects in Trinity, in the Sailor and in Saint- Pierre.

II- Historic data:

The history of Martinique is related to the one of the Antilles, therefore to the European colonization and to the Spanish, English, French and the Dutch slavery practiced during two centuries. Nevertheless, the human presence in the Antilles appeared well before the arrival of Europeans. Thus, some archaeologists found in Martinique and in the rest of the Antilles, some stone tools membership is allotted to the Amerindian, their seniority being estimated between 3000 to 3500 years. Actually, island’s history began a few 1500 years before Christopher Columbus when installed the Arawak Amerindian original to the Venezuelan coasts.

2-1 The first Amerindian occupants

The first known occupants seem to be the Arawaks come from Venezuela about 300 or 400 years before our era. In 295 (before our era), an eruption of the Peeled mountain had the Arawaks then left Martinique and didn't come back on the island that of the year 400.Morover, an about sixty Arawak sites were inventoried today and they testify to the existence of inhabited Arawak villages. However, about 1200 of our era, a new Amerindian civilization appeared in the island: the Caribbean or Kalina. It is about Amerindian people considered quarrelsome come from Guyana and that invades Martinique and exterminated little by little all Arawaks (except the women). On their turn the CarÏbbeans decimated little after the arrival of the Europeans.

2.2 The short passage of Christopher Columbus

When Christopher Columbus disembarked in Martinique, June 15, 1502 (at the time of his fourth journey), he made the acquaintance of the Caribs as the Arawaks had already disappeared since the XIIIth century. The Amerindians would have called the Island Madinina, which means "the island to the flowers". Columbus would have baptized the island of the Martinique name in honour of his holy owner, Martin. Dreading the terrifying Caribbean to their anthropophagic, Columbus left the island and, thereafter, the Spanish were not interested more to the Martinique. Thus, they let the place to the French and the English.

2.3 The French colonization

The cardinal of Richelieu, in the name of King Louis XIII, created the Company of the American Isles (1635-1650) in order to colonize the islands of the Small Antilles. The true conquest of Martinique started with the arrival of a French adventurer, Pierre Belain d’Esnambuc, September 15, 1635. In 1550, the sugar cane had already become the only culture of the islands to the Antilles. The first contacts between the Amerindian Caribbean and the French had been rather cordial, but in the aim to be gradually despoiled of their lands the Caribs opposed a charp resistance to the French. Then, after several years of conflicts, as well with English as with the Caribbean, the French during the guidance of Beausoleil ended by hunting definitely (in 1658) the Martinique’s Caribbean ; these last took refuge in the islands of the Dominique and Saint-Vincent.

2.4 The new immigrants

But the slavery elimination could only harm to the Martinique economy plantation which couldn’t support very well an important costs to the labour. This is why, on 1853 to 1985, France decided to import several thousands of immigrants workers (named "coolies") originating to the Indian French counters. Considered like docile, these "coolies" came to work in Antilles for a period, in theory of five years. Many among them remained there to the end of their contract, married and became soon completely a Martinicans, while keeping their religion and their culinary practices.
To the century end, a thousand of Chinese also disembarked in the island and, a little later, other immigrants arrived, this time, from Syria and Lebanon. This is explains that the Martinican population is made today of a varied sufficient ethnic palette, which we counts not only the African Blacks (the majority) and the mulattos, but also the Indians, the Chinese and the Syros-Lebanese, without forgetting the Whites-Countries (the "Békés"). All Asian or Near East new immigrants lost now their native language and adopted the martinican Creole as maternal language. The White "békés" speaks French but also the Creole whereas the Whites-France (the "Metros") speak only the French. Although living in relative harmony, the Martinique different ethnic groups couldn’t continue to distinguish and mistrust themselves according to subtle distinctions.