February** Dynamic Incentive Program
The Caribbean Sea is located in the western part of the Atlantic Ocean, between the Greater Antilles, the Lesser Antilles, Central America, and South America, connecting the Gulf of Mexico through the Yucatan Strait in the northwest, and connecting with the Atlantic Ocean in the east and northeast through the Mona Strait, Windward Strait, and the Lesser Antilles.
The Caribbean Sea is about 2,800 kilometers long from east to west, about 1,400 kilometers wide from north to south, and covers an area of about 275It is 40,000 square kilometers and has more than 30 countries and regions along the coast. The average depth of the Caribbean Sea is 2,491 meters, with the deepest being 7,686 meters in the Cayman Trench between Cuba and Jamaica.
Sint Maarten is located in the northeastern corner of the Caribbean Sea, about 300 kilometers from the American island of Puerto Rico. St. Maarten Island covers an area of about 88 square kilometers, ranking about 15th among the islands in China, smaller than Xiamen Island and larger than Hong Kong Island. Squeezed in the middle of the Leeward Islands of the Caribbean Sea, Sint Maarten is one of those places that is almost impossible to find on a map without a magnifying glass, and is the smallest island on earth that belongs to two countries.
Sint Maarten is hilly, with an average altitude of about 350 meters above sea level and a peak of about 424 meters above sea level, and the climate is pleasant, with temperatures ranging from 20 to 34 degrees Celsius throughout the year.
During the colonial era, Spain, the Netherlands, Britain, France and other powers landed on the island one after another, and there were long-term conflicts and even wars between them. It was not until 1816 that the current pattern was laid down, with the Netherlands and France occupying the north and south of Sint Maarten respectively.
With an area of about 550,000 square kilometers, France is the largest country in the European Union. The mainland of the Netherlands covers an area of about 4150,000 square kilometers, of which about 060,000 square kilometers came from land reclamation from the sea. France and the Netherlands, both located in the western part of Europe, are sandwiched between Belgium and are not neighbors, but in the Caribbean, they are.
France occupies the northern part of Sint Maarten, with an area of about 54 square kilometers; The Netherlands occupies the southern part of Sint Maarten and covers an area of about 34 square kilometers.
France's overseas territories cover an area of about 120,000 square kilometers, including 5 overseas departments, 5 overseas collectives, 1 special collective, 1 overseas territory, and 1 directly administered island, covering the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans.
French Saint-Martin is a French overseas collective, with the capital of Marigot, with a population of about 380,000 (2023), mostly black. French Saint-Martin also belongs to the European Union, uses the euro, the official language is French, and has seats in both the French parliament and the Senate.
The Dutch overseas territories, all in the Caribbean, have a total area of about 1,000 square kilometers and a population of more than 100,000.
Figure - French port of Saint-Martin.
The Dutch Overseas Territory consists of two groups of small islands about 900 km apart, north and south. In the south: Curacao, Aruba, Bonaire, located off the northern coast of Venezuela; To the north: Sint Maarten, Sint Eustatius, Saba, and the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles.
Aruba, Curacao, and Sint Maarten were self-governing states, on an equal footing with the Netherlands (Netherlands); The islands of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba are part of the Netherlands.
Figure - Saint-Maarten French Airport.
Sint Maarten is a self-governing state of the Netherlands, with its capital at Philipsburg, with a population of about 410,000 (2023), mostly black. In Netherlands Antillean guilders or US dollars, the official languages are Dutch, English, Papimento.
France built the Grand Case Airport in the northern part of Sint Maarten, and the Netherlands built Princess Juliana International Airport, which is larger than the French airport. There are more than 80,000 small islands, why build two airports? First, it is inconvenient, if the French want to go to and from Paris to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, it will be very inconvenient, and the same is true for the Dutch. Second, in order to stabilize the rule, France and the Netherlands are both old colonial powers, and the overseas territories even have an airport, be careful of being referendumed, and the two places on the island will be unified in minutes, after all, the locals will still consider their own interests more.
Figure - Dutch port of Sint Maarten.
The area of mainland France is much larger than that of the Netherlands, and the number and area of overseas territories are also far greater than those of the Netherlands, which are about 120 times the size of the Netherlands. St. Maarten is nothing to France, but the Dutch spend a lot of money on land reclamation in mainland Europe, and they regard St. Maarten as a treasure and build it like a back garden, especially the capital city of Philipsburg, which is so beautiful that people are dizzy.
In 2017, when a hurricane hit the island of Saint-Martin, France allocated funds to help the French island of Saint-Martin, and the Dutch side not only allocated funds to the Dutch city of Saint-Martin, but the king of the Netherlands also personally visited the island and even sent troops to assist in disaster relief and reconstruction.
Figure - Sint Maarten Dutch Airport.
Tourism is the backbone of Sint Maarten, with around 2.5 million visitors arriving each year, and the two airports are not too many.