The Capital City of the Island of Guadeloupe is called Basse-Terre. The city is located to the west of Guadeloupe at the south-west corner of Basse-Terre Island. The island's closest neighbor is Dominica to the north. Basse-Terre is mainly an urban city with some farmlands for agriculture. Though it is the administrative center of Guadeloupe, it ranks second to Pointe-à-Pitre in terms of population. The capital city is surrounded by tropical forests. Furthermore, it has a high altitude and has a rugged terrain. Basse-Terre also possesses an active volcano called La Soufrière which has become a popular tourist attraction site within the city.

According to the census taken in 2012, Basse-Terre had a population of 44,864 people. Most of the population lives in the metropolitan areas of the city. As at 2012, only 11,534 of the population lived in the urban areas. The population of the city has grown to about 175,000 and about 45,000 of these city dwellers live in the urban areas.

The city is linked to the Îles des Saintes town with cruise ships and a ferry service which are served at the maritime station. Basse-Terre boasts of several tourist attractions. The tourist destinations include Guadeloupe National Park, which UNESCO honored as a World Biosphere Reserve. Guadeloupe National Park draws more than a million visitors every year. The La Soufrière volcano is the highest peak of the Lesser Antilles and draws high numbers of hikers. It also forms the source of the beautiful triple waterfall of Chutes du Carbet.

Basse-Terre geographically lies within a location that has an overlapping climate between tropical rainforest and tropical monsoon climate. It enjoys warm and dry months from January to March, with the driest month being February. As a city, it has averagely consistent temperatures of 25 degrees Celsius throughout the whole year.

This page was last modified on May 1st, 2018

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