Castries

Quarter

Castries is the capital of the Caribbean island nation of St. Lucia and has about 9,000 inhabitants (metropolitan area about 60,000 inhabitants). It is in the same Quarter.

Geography

Castries is located on the northwest coast of St. Lucia and is about 65 kilometers from the main town Martiniqueschen Fort-de -France.

History

Castries to 1768 was built in 1765 by the French in 1785 and named after Charles Eugène Gabriel de La Croix de Castries, marquis de Castries. 1794 named Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the city after his mother Queen Charlotte of England in " Charlottesville " to. In April 1796, the city was bombarded by cannons and completely destroyed by the resulting fire. Even in the years 1813, 1927 and 1948, the city burned to a large extent completely.

After in 1863 the first import coal laden ship in the harbor Castries, a coal industry, however, due from 1906 through the war and the construction of the Panama Canal in 1914 and the Great Depression in 1927 broke again evolved in the city.

Economy

The city's port is one of the best in the West Indies. There are mainly bananas, but also exports sugar cane, rum, syrup, cocoa, coconuts, oils and various tropical fruits. Not far from the town is the George FL Charles Airport.

Others

Castries is the seat of the Archdiocese of Castries.

Sons and daughters of the town

• William Arthur Lewis, (1915-1991), Nobel Laureate in Economics (1979 )
• Dunstan St. Omer (* 1927), painter
• Derek Walcott ( b. 1930 ), Nobel Prize for Literature ( 1992)
• Emile Ford ( born 1937 ), singer of a British rockabilly band of the early 1960s
• Julian Robert Hunte ( born 1940 ), diplomat and politician, President of the 58th UN General Assembly (2003)