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Collectivité de Saint-Martin Collectivity of Saint Martin
Flag Coat of arms
Anthem: La Marseillaise
Capital (and largest city)		Marigot
Official languages		French
Government
-	President of France	Nicolas Sarkozy
-	Prefect	Dominique Lacroix
-	President of the Territorial Council	Louis-Constant Fleming
Overseas Collectivity		of France
-	Island divided between France and the Netherlands	23 March 1648
-	as separate Overseas Collectivity	22 February 2007
Area
-	Total	53.2 km² (not ranked) 20.5 sq mi
-	Water (%)	negligible
Population
-	Oct. 2004 estimate	33,102 (not ranked)
-	March 1999 census	29,078
-	Density	622/km² (not ranked) 1,612/sq mi
HDI (2003)		n/a (unranked) (n/a)
Currency		Euro (€) (EUR)
Time zone		(UTC-4)
-	Summer (DST)	(UTC-3)
Internet TLD		.mf assigned but not in use, .fr and .gp in use

Saint Martin (French: Saint-Martin), officially the Collectivity of Saint Martin (French: Collectivité de Saint-Martin), is an overseas collectivity of France located in the Caribbean. It came into being on February 22, 2007, encompassing the northern parts of the island of Saint Martin and neighbouring islets, the largest of which is Tintamarre. The southern part of the island, Sint Maarten, is part of the Netherlands Antilles.

Saint Martin was for many years a French commune forming part of Guadeloupe, which is an overseas région and overseas département of France and is therefore in the European Union. In 2003 the population of the French part of the island voted in favour of secession from Guadeloupe in order to form a separate overseas collectivity (COM) of France.^[1] On February 9, 2007, the French Parliament passed a bill granting COM status to both the French part of Saint Martin and neighbouring Saint Barthélemy.^[2] The new status took effect when the law was published in the Official Journal on February 22, 2007.^[3] Saint Martin remains part of the European Union.^{[citation needed]} The official currency in Saint Martin is the euro (though the U.S. dollar is also widely accepted).

The new governance structure befitting an overseas collectivity took effect on July 15, 2007 with the first session of the Territorial Council (French: Conseil territorial) and the election of Louis-Constant Fleming as president of the Territorial Council.

Prior to 2007, Saint Martin was coded as GP (Guadeloupe) in ISO 3166-1. In October 2007, it received the ISO 3166-1 code MF (alpha-2 code), MAF (alpha-3 code), and 663 (numeric code).^[4]

The French part of the island has a land area of 53.20 km² (20.5 sq mi). At the October 2004 supplementary French census, the population in the French part of the island was 33,102 (up from only 8,072 inhabitants at the 1982 census), which means a population density of 622 inhabitants per km² in 2004.

The official currency of Saint Martin is the euro (though the U.S. dollar is also widely accepted). Tourism is the main economic activity.

INSEE estimated that the total GDP of Saint Martin amounted to 421 million euros in 1999 (US$449 million at 1999 exchanges rates; US$599 million at Oct. 2007 exchange rates).^[5] In that same year the GDP per capita of Saint Martin was 14,500 euros (US$15,500 at 1999 exchanges rates; US$20,600 at Oct. 2007 exchange rates), which was 39% lower than the average GDP per capita of metropolitan France in 1999.^[5] In comparison, the GDP per capita on the Dutch side of the island, Sint Maarten, was 14,430 euros in 2004.^[6]

Map showing the former constituent parts of the Guadeloupe region/department among the Leeward Islands, including Saint-Martin, prior to February 2007.

Map showing French Saint-Martin (north) and Dutch Sint Maarten (south).

Flags flying in Marigot harbour, Saint-Martin.

• Culture of St. Martin
• History of St. Martin
• Saint Martin, the island itself
• O sweet Saint-Martin's Land (bi-national song/anthem of Saint-Martin/Sint-Maarten)
• List of Sint Maarten governors

• CIA World Factbook entry on Saint Martin