Castries

About Castries

Castries is the capital and largest city of Saint Lucia, an island country in the Caribbean. The urban area has a population of approximately 20,000, while the eponymous district has a population of just under 70,000, as of May 2013. The city covers 80 km2 (31 sq mi).

Castries is on a flood plain and is built on reclaimed land. It houses the seat of government and the head offices of many foreign and local businesses. The city is laid out in a grid pattern. Its sheltered harbour receives cargo vessels, ferries and cruise ships. It houses duty-free shopping facilities such as Point Seraphine and La Place Carenage.

Castries is the birthplace of Arthur Lewis, winner of the 1979 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, as well as of Derek Walcott, winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize for Literature.

The original name was Carénage ("safe anchorage" in French, in reference to the city's deep water port), and was given by the French in 1650, at the time of founding. It adopted the name Castries in 1756, in honor of Charles Eugène Gabriel de La Croix, marquis de Castries, whose title relates to a commune in southern France; the origin for the commune's name is the Latin word castra, plural...

Overview adapted from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA. Photography via Wikimedia Commons.