The 1902 Mount Pelée eruption killed about 30,000 people in minutes — the 20th century's deadliest volcanic disaster. Martinique, the 1,128 km² 'Flower of the Caribbean' between Dominica and Saint Lucia, is a French overseas region: 360,000 EU citizens speaking French and Creole, the birthplace of Empress Joséphine and Aimé Césaire, and home to the world's only AOC sugarcane rum.
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You'll explore Martinique's status as a French overseas department, the cataclysm that destroyed Saint-Pierre in 1902, the unique rhum agricole industry and its AOC, the philosophy of Négritude pioneered by Aimé Césaire, the legacy of Empress Joséphine, and natural sights from the Jardin de Balata to Diamond Rock.
On May 8, 1902 a pyroclastic flow from Mount Pelée engulfed the city of Saint-Pierre — the 'Paris of the Caribbean' — killing about 30,000 people in minutes. Famous prisoner Louis-Auguste Cyparis survived inside an underground cell.
Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de la Pagerie was born in 1763 at Les Trois-Îlets in Martinique. She married Napoleon Bonaparte and became Empress of the French. Her statue in Fort-de-France was beheaded in 1991 in protest of her links to slavery.
Martinique's rhum agricole is distilled from fresh pressed sugarcane juice rather than molasses, giving it a grassy, vegetal flavor. It is the only AOC (Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée) rum in the world, granted in 1996.
Last updated: April 2026