A postcard from the West Indies: Saint Martin

Postcard

Saint Martin is an overseas collectivity of France located in the Caribbean. The neighbor sharing the same island is Sint Maarten, a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

It is the smallest island in the world ever to have been partitioned between two different nations. The border is almost non-existent and people cross back and forth without ever realizing they are entering a new country. 

Princess Juliana International Airport serves both the Dutch and the French part of the island. It is named after crown princess Juliana of the Netherlands in 1944, the year after the airport opened. The airport is famous for its short landing strip which is barely enough for heavy jets. Because of this, the planes approach the island flying extremely low, right over Maho Beach.
It’s a spectacular sight!

Stamp

Jacques Baumel (1918 – 2006), a French politician. The number 23980A on the cancellation is the code for Saint Martin.