Basse-Terre is Guadeloupe’s most mountainous island and it features the highest peak of all: La Soufrière, a 1.467-meter-high active volcano. Grande Terre is made up of an 80-meter-high calcareous prairie. Basse-Terre is also volcanic-origin and peaks 1,484 meters high above the sea level. Its main centers are Basse-Terre and Pointe-a-Pitre. Including the Marie-Galante, Désirade, Les Saintes, Petite-Terre, St. Barthelemy dependencies, as well as San Martín’s French-owned portion, this group of islands make up the Windward Islands within the framework of the Lesser Antilles. They feature a volcanic-origin mountainous landscape, especially in Basse-Terre, where there’s an active volcano. The climate is tropical and rainy, a tad dampened by the marine influence. Soils are fertile are excellent for growing sugar cane. Mountainsides are covered with woody forests whose trees are irrationally felled.
IIt’s a Caribbean island located between St. Vincent and French-owned Martinique islands. Its territory takes 616 square kilometers, mostly made up of volcanic and mountainous landscape. The island’s highest peak is Morne Gimie, reaching out at 958 meters above the sea level.
IIt’s made up of two main islands and five insular dependencies. The two main islands, Basse-Terre to the west and Grande-Terre to the east –that together take after a butterfly- are gapped by the Saleé Strait in the Caribbean are linked by a bridged. The Marie-Galante Islands, the Désirade Island and the Les Saintes islets are all dependencies of the Guadeloupe department. Other two dependencies, San Bartlomé and San Martín’s northern part, are located to the northwestern, some 250 kilometers away. The city of Basse-Terre (14.107 inhabitants in 1990) in the Basse-Terre island, is Guadeloupe’s capital. The department’s largest city and economic center, though, is the Pointe-à-Pitre port (26,083 inhabitants), located on Grand-Terre. Dependent islands of Mane Galante (158 km²), Les Saints, Le Désirade, Saint-Barthélemy, the Petite-Terre islets and the Saint Martin´s French-owned portion make up together a French overseas department (17.026 km², 386.988 inhabitants, where Basse-Terre is the capital city).Basse-Terre –named after that Caribbean island and port, and Guadeloupe’s capital- is a city located to the southwest of Basse-Terre.
Its flora comprises three great varieties of tropical trees and flowers: coconut palm trees, palm trees, bamboo, hibiscus, Peruvian daffodils, bougainvillaea and roses. The island’s surroundings are teeming with beautiful coral reefs and underwater wildlife is abundant with a great variety of colorful, many-shaped species.
The island’s wildlife features wild animals, but none of these species are dangerous at all. There are no snakes, nor rattlesnakes. The raccoon is the symbol of Guadeloupe’s National Park. It’s a mouse-like gnawing mammal that lives in the woods along with a varied range of birds like woodpeckers, black jacks, humming birds and thrushes. Other outstanding birds are pelicans, frigate birds and whippoorwills.
