Fort-de-France is the capital of France’s Caribbean overseas department of Martinique as well as one of the major cities in the whole of the Caribbean. The city was established all the way back in 1638 as France was rapidly expanding its colonial dominions around the world, but it didn’t come to prominence on the island until the turn of the 20th century when Saint-Pierre, the oldest city on the island and the “Paris of the Caribbean,” was utterly destroyed by a violent volcanic eruption. Since that time, Fort-de-France has steadily grown in commercial, economic, and cultural importance in the region.
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