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Guadeloupe
What to visit in Guadeloupe?
Guadeloupe in Guadeloupe Creole : Gwadloupe
GUADELOUPE: a bit of history
Guadeloupe (in Guadeloupean Creole : Gwadloupe is a archipelago from Caribbean consisting of seven islands, forming a region and one department from French overseas territories . The main part (Karukera in Native American languages ) in the shape of a butterfly is composed of two islands: the Big land to the east and the Lowland to the west, separated by an arm of the sea, called "the Salt River ".
Administratively, Guadeloupe is a French department , a region mono-department of the French overseas territories and an outermost region european, French West Indies ; its official departmental code is " 971 ". It is a member of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).
Guadeloupe, bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the west and by the Atlantic Ocean to the east, is located 575 km north of the coast of Venezuela in South America , 205 km east of the Island of Aves , 739 km east-southeast of the Dominican Republic , 2,176 km east-southeast of Miami ( United States ) and 6,732 km from Paris .
The region consists of several islands and islets : the Guadeloupe continental (the Big land and the Basse-Terre ) and its dependencies: the island of Marie-Galante , the Saintes archipelago composed mainly of Terre-de-Haut and Terre-de-Bas , Desirade and uninhabited islands.
Basse-Terre known as Karukera
Historically, Basse-Terre was first named "Karukera" ("island of beautiful waters", in the Caribbean language 4 ) by the Native Americans who inhabit it and Grande-Terre, “Cibuqueira” (“island of gum trees”, in the Caribbean language) 5 . The Rivière Salée , arm of the sea which separates them cutting Guadeloupe in two, was called "Aboukétoutou" which meant "strait". Christopher Colombus approached there on November 4, 1493 and gave it the name of Guadeloupe in homage to the Virgin protector of navigators Our Lady of Guadalupe . In Spain , to Guadalupe , the Royal Monastery of Santa María de Guadalupe is dedicated to the Virgin of the Navigators. The name of Guadalupe would come from the name of the river which flows in this city, in Arabic wadi-al-lub, which means the "river of black pebbles 6 or, according to a deformation indicated by Ana Castillo , “river of love” 7 .
We owe travel agencies the paraphrase “Butterfly Island” inspired by the shape of the two main islands.
The island of Lowland has on its territory the volcano of the Soufrière , also nicknamed the Old Lady, and the culmination of Lesser Antilles . It is full of waterfalls, rivers, beaches of golden or black sand, and a tropical rain forest covers its mountain range. The island of Big land consists (in the west) of a plain bordered by mangroves since the Gosier up to Port-Louis , from the region of Large Funds (in the center) and an arid plateau, jagged with rocky and wild coasts (from north to east). the littoral south of Grande-Terre, dotted with white sand beaches sheltered from coral reefs , concentrates the major seaside resorts of Gosier , from Saint Anne and of Saint-François . The island of Marie-Galante is characterized in the north by a limestone cliff then, in the east and in the south, by a plateau which becomes “dreary” to tilt down steep slopes towards a coastal plain. To the west of the island, facing Basse-Terre, the beaches and mangroves stretch along the Caribbean Sea and a humid natural coastal environment extends into the bay of Folle-Anse.
Guadeloupe and the Antilles constitute a biodiversity hot spot . Like the others Lesser Antilles , Guadeloupe emerged from the ocean less than five million years ago and its isolation has favored the emergence of a high rate of endemism . The archipelago was completely covered with forest before the arrival of Europeans in the sixteenth century, and this arrival was accompanied by biological invasions and clearing which had a severe impact on the biodiversity . Many species have disappeared from the island such as the Amazon of Guadeloupe , the mondoungue rat , the Caribbean manatee , the monk seal of the Caribbean , the améive of Guadeloupe . According to a report by the DEAL from Guadeloupe and Martinique: 1,260 vascular plants , eight mammals, 14 birds, 11 reptiles four amphibians and four species of freshwater fish were introduced to the French Antilles . Among which the Miconia calvescens , rat , mongoose, lion fish and cassava ants are considered invasive species.
(Source Wikipedia)
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guadeloupe