France - Martinique

France has a number of overseas territories, that they call DOM-TOM. It stand for overseas Departments and Territories. One of these overseas departments is the island of Martinique in the Caribbean. Martinique is an insular region of France located in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of 1.128 km² and a population of 380.877 inhabitants (2015). Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. One of the Windward Islands, it is directly north of Saint Lucia, southeast of Greater Antilles, northwest of Barbados, and south of Dominica.

As with the other overseas departments, Martinique is one of the eighteen regions of France (being an overseas region) and an integral part of the French Republic. As part of France, Martinique is part of the European Union, and its currency is the euro. The official language is French, and virtually the entire population also speaks Antillean Creole (Créole Martiniquais).

The island was occupied first by Arawaks, then by Caribs. The Carib people had migrated from the mainland to the islands about 1201. Martinique was charted by Columbus in 1493. On 15 September 1635, Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc landed in the harbor of St. Pierre with 150 French settlers and claimed Martinique for the French King Louis XIII and established the first European settlement at Fort Saint-Pierre.

For the envelope I used stamps from the booklet issued on 28 November 2011 for the Year of the Overseas Territories (Année de l'Outre Mer). The stamps were for the national tariff so I bought two booklets and put two identical stamps on the envelope. The stamps were cancelled at the Liberté post office in the capital Fort-de-France.

Date sent: 20 April 2017

Date postmark: 16 May 2017

Date received: 23 May 2017

Number of days: 33

Envelope in collection: 98