Carribbean Island of Guadeloupe profile
Guadeloupe's economy is kept afloat by public salaries and credits from Paris. Tourism is also a key earner with visitors, mostly from the US, drawn to Guadeloupe's resorts, beaches and waterfalls.
Known to its one-time Carib Indian population as "karukera", or "island of beautiful waters", the butterfly-shaped French territory of Guadeloupe is a centre of Caribbean Creole culture.
French, African and Caribbean influences infuse its music, dance, food and widely-spoken patois.
Guadeloupe's economy is kept afloat by public salaries and credits from Paris. Unemployment has been a long-running malaise, although its effects are tempered by France's generous social security system.
Agriculture revolves around sugar cane and bananas; the latter is troubled by regional competition and the phasing out of preferential European quotas.
Tourism is also a key earner with visitors, mostly from the US, drawn to Guadeloupe's resorts, beaches, waterfalls and forests.
GUADELOUPE: FACTS
Capital: Basse-Terre
Area: 1,628 sq km
Population: 384,200
Languages: French, Antillean Creole
Life expectancy: 76 years (men) 82 years (women)
Image caption,
Cinnamon is among the spices sold at the Saint-Antoinee market in Pointe-a-Pitre
LEADER
Head of state: President of France
Guadeloupe is administered as a part of the French mainland.
Regional and departmental councils, elected by popular votes, oversee legislative and day-to-day affairs. Guadeloupe sends representatives to the National Assembly and to the Senate in Paris.
MEDIA
Image caption,
The RFO TV and radio network operates in France's overseas departments and territories
Commercial broadcasters operate alongside services provided by public broadcaster Reseau France Outre-mer (RFO).
TIMELINE
Image caption,
Like many areas in the Caribbean, Guadeloupe is prone to damage from tropical storms
Some key dates in Guadeloupe's history:
700 BC - First inhabited by the Amerindian Arawak people, who are displaced by Carib Indians in 1000AD.
1493 - Visited by explorer Christopher Columbus but the Carib Indian inhabitants resist Spanish attempts to settle.
1635 - French colonialists establish a settlement, wiping out the Carib population and bringing in African slaves to work on sugar plantations.
1700-1800s - Several British occupations and a brief period of nominal Swedish rule before the territory is restored to France in 1816.
1946 - Becomes a French overseas department
1958 - Chooses to remain a French possession over independence
1976 - La Soufriere volcano erupts causing half the island to be evacuated
1980 - Becomes a French administrative region
1980s - Campaign for secession flares up when pro-independence groups bomb hotels and government buildings
2009 - Violent protests follow a general strike over the cost of living. France offers Guadeloupe hundreds of millions of euros in new subsidies.
2021 - Widespread demonstrations against Covid-19 restrictions take place on Guadeloupe and Martinique. While the protests begin over coronavirus curbs, they grow into calls to address longstanding issues in French territories, such as poverty and high unemployment.
There are also demonstrations over compensation for farm workers suffering from the effects of the insecticide chlordecone, widely used up to 1993 in both Guadeloupe and Martinique.
The French public health agency estimates that over 90% of the adult population of Martinique and Guadeloupe suffer from chlordecone poisoning. It has been linked to prostate, stomach and pancreatic cancer.
Image caption,
A month-long general strike in 2009 plunged Guadeloupe into violent protests
BBC Monitoring
Economy
Guadeloupe exhibits a modern economy that progressively transformed starting in the early 1990s. Traditionally preponderant sectors like agriculture, small business and construction were replaced by a dynamic, private and mostly tertiary sector.
Key figures of the Region:
Population: 405 739 (on January 1st, 2013) or 0,6% of the world population.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP): 8 033 million euros, or 19810 euros per inhabitant.
Trade exchange: 2 747 millions euros in imports, 264,5 million in exports.
France is the archipelago’s leading customer and provider.
Businesses: about 40 000, 47 000 employees (excluding agriculture, Insee figures for 2010).
Sectors: the tertiary sector accounts for 85,2 % of wealth production (including 12,7% for trade). It precedes construction and civil engineering (5,7%), as well as agriculture and fishing (2,8%).
AGRICULTURE, CATTLE FARMING AND FISHING
Agriculture remains a fundamental sector in Guadeloupe, in spite of its declining economy. It employs 12% of the territory’s working population and contributes 6% of regional gross revenue.
It relies on two traditional pillars: sugar cane and banana production.
Main indicators (figures for 2013):
Crushed sugar canes: 448 022 tons
Rum production: 73 938 hectolitres of pure alcohol
Sugar production: 45 366 tons
Marketed banana production: 71 512 tons
Banana is the leading export product in terms of volume
Other productions aiming at diversification are under development: melon, other tropical fruits, flowers. However, niche markets remain to be harnessed.
Regarding the cattle farming sector, it responds to a small quantity of local needs in meat consumption.
Livestock in Guadeloupe (Agreste figures for 2013):
BOVINES44 457Poultry242 000Goats132 240Pigs15 128Breeding does3 000Equidae371
Guadeloupe has slightly more than a thousand fishermen and about 750 fishing vessels (INSEE figures for 2012).
Source: The Guadeloupe Regional