ST. MAARTEN

Sint Maarten is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It covers 40% of the island of Saint Martin in the Caribbean. The capital is Philipsburg.

Saint Marteen is a tropical island located 240 km east of Puerto Rico to the north-east of the Caribbean Sea.

The area of island is 87 km² and is roughly divided into two parts between the Kingdom of Netherlands and France. The southern half of the Dutch kingdom is called Sint Maarten, while in the northern half of France it is called Saint Martin. The Dutch territory is one of the countries that make up the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

In the southern part of the island outside the EU the currency is the Dutch Antillean guilder,(ANG), while in the northern part connected to the EU via France it is the Euro. Although the offical language on the Dutch side is Dutch and English, and on the French side it is the French , the most common language on the island is English. This is grounded in English-speaking slaves, which had been brought to the island back in the day.

In the eastern Caribbean country St Marteen, which is as small as 87 square kilometers, two different countries are able to live in peace together, without a physical boundary between them. 141 different nationalities are hosted and 7 different languages ​​are spoken. Since the Euro is used on the French side of this island, they generally regard the euro as equal to dollar in terms of purchases. Whereas schools open in August on the one side of the country, they open at the end of the September. Apart from this, there are actually a number of differences between these two countries. It is truly surprising that even telephone calls made from one side to the other are written in inter-national terms, with the use of different electrical voltage sockets on both sides of this tiny island, as required by the rules of these two states.