Sint Maarten

Dear all

the loc created today Sint Maarten [www.mindat.org] is shared territory ; the French territory of Saint Martin and the Dutch territory of Sint Maarten ;-) So, not only French ;-)

Cheers, Frank

Netherlands Antilles
the five islands of the Netherlands Antilles are divided geographically into the Leeward Islands (northern) group (Saba, Sint Eustatius, and Sint Maarten) and the Windward Islands (southern) group (Bonaire and Curacao); the island of Saint Martin is the smallest landmass in the world shared by two independent states, the French territory of Saint Martin and the Dutch territory of Sint Maarten

Hey Frank,

I was cleaning the French West Indies (a lot of inaccurate or outdated information there), and put the French part of Sint Maarten here (with French/English name, and Dutch name as a synonym). I also deleted the Lesser Antilles part of the locality name (since all French West Indies are in the Lesser Antilles, this is redundant).

We should decide if we want it to appear twice (under Netherland Antilles - [www.mindat.org] and French West Indies - [www.mindat.org]), or only once as the whole island. Now I would favour the second option since I just realize there already is a Saint Martin in the database (http://www.mindat.org/loc-187692.html).

So, my suggestion:

- French West Indies
-- Guadeloupe
-- Martinique
-- Saint Barthélemy
-- either a note about Saint Martin in the page or a dummy entry for Saint Martin, with an automatic link to the next entry.

- Saint Martin (Sint Maarten, Saint Martin)
-- Dutch part
-- French part

- Dutch West Indies (rather than Netherland Antilles which is/will be outdated)
-- Sint Eustatius
-- Saba
-- either a note about Saint Martin in the page or a dummy entry for Saint Martin, with an automatic link to the real entry.
-- Curaçao
-- Bonaire
-- Aruba

Now I notice that there is already an entry for Aruba as for an independant country...
What's the feeling of other people here?

Cheers,
Etienne

PS: this locality is of no use and should also be deleted: [www.mindat.org]

From wikipedia

"The Netherlands Antilles is scheduled to be dissolved as a unified political entity on October 10, 2010, so that the five constituent islands will attain new constitutional statuses within the Kingdom of the Netherlands."

So I'd suggest we group them under Netherland Antilles for now (which is the more well-known name than Dutch West Indies), and in the future remove that level altogether and leave each as an independent top level (as with Aruba)

Jolyon

OK, then I don't deal with the Netherland Antilles... ;-)

How about the French West Indies? All of them as top level entries? Or leave the French West Indies as is? Or you make a Lesser Antilles entry, and group all the islands, independant or not, in it (this would be a geographical rather than political subdivision)?

Etienne

Well ;-)
that discussion has been going on for the last 20?years.
some will perhaps go independent if they can manage economically ; others will get the 'status' of far-away-Dutch-city-islands
don't trust Wikipedia on this ;-)
So... I go with Jolyon
Cheers, Frank