Guadeloupe is an overseas department of France. In addition to the main islands of Basse-Terre and Grande-Terre, it includes the dependencies of les Saintes, Marie Galante, la Désirade, Saint-Barthélémy and part of Saint-Martin. Topographic mapping of these islands was initiated by, and remains the responsibility of, the Institut National Géographique (IGN), Paris. The IGN first obtained an air photo cover in 1946, and this was followed by triangulation, levelling and photogrammetric work in the period 1947-1952. A basic 1:20,000 scale series was issued in 36 sheets in 1956, and revised in 1969. In 1985, a further revision took place and the series was edited into the style of the French Série bleue and reduced to only eight sheets, published in 1987-88. The sheets are contoured with a 10 m interval, and the projection is UTM, International (Hayford) ellipsoid.
A series of six 1:50,000 scale sheets was last revise in 1969. A single-sheet 1:100,000 scale map was first published in 1958. In 1988 it was reformatted as Edition 1 in the Pays et villes du monde series. This sheet has a legend in French and English and an overprint of tourist symbols. Latitude and longitude are marked, but there is no grid. Relief is by shading only.
Soviet military topographic mapping of Guadeloupe is available at the following scales: 1:1,000,000 (2 sheets, complete coverage, published 1966-1990); 1:500,000 (2 sheets, complete coverage, published in 1986) and 1:200,000 (2 sheets, complete coverage, published in 1966). These products are available in print, digital raster and digital vector GIS formats from East View Geospatial.
Guadeloupe was mapped geologically at 1:50,000 scale in the early 1960s by the Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM). A new edition of the sheet covering Marie-Galante and the Îlets de la Petite-Terre was published in 1973, and Saint-Martin was published in 1989. In addition to these five sheets, there is a 1:25,000 scale geological map of La Désirade, and 1:20,000 scale maps of Les Saintes, Saint-Barthélémy and of the Soufrière volcano. These latter sheets are accompanied by explanatory memoirs.
A geomorphological map of the Isle Saint-Martin was made by the Centre for Applied Geography at the Université Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg and published by CNRS in 1970 (CNRS RCP 77).
Soil mapping has been carried out by the Institut Français de Recherche Scientifique pour le Développement en Coopération (ORSTOM). The principal series, at 1:20,000 scale, is in color and comprises a set of 18 sheets covering Basse-Terre. Grande Terre is covered by a 1:10,000 scale monochrome soil map in 54 sheets.
The atlas of Guadeloupe is one of a series covering the overseas departments of France, prepared by the Centre d’Etudes de Géographie Tropicale of the Centre National de Recherches Scientifiques (CNRS), at Bordeaux-Talence, together with geographers from several other institutions. The atlas has 36 map sheets in color at the principal scale of 1:150 000, accompanied by 80 pages of text and covering themes concerned with physical environment, and with social and economic geography.
Copyright © 2014 De Gruyter for e-version of World Mapping Today, 2nd Edition | Copyright © 2019 East View Geospatial, Inc.
