Fort-de-France vs Saint-Joseph
Two municipalities in Martinique, France, side by side on the five things this site grades — climate & hazards, local vitality, services, affordability and property market. Every figure comes from official open data, and the ones that cannot honestly be compared are marked rather than quietly averaged.
Fort-de-France
Saint-Joseph
A provisional grade had at least one pillar filled with a neutral 50 rather than measured. Where one side is provisional and the other is not, the gap between the two grades may be partly made of that fill — treat the pillar rows below as the evidence, not the letters.
Pillar by pillar
| Pillar | Fort-de-France | Saint-Joseph |
|---|---|---|
| Climate & hazards | not measured | not measured |
| Local vitality | 38/100 ▲ | 37/100 |
| Services & access | 41/100 | 41/100 |
| Affordability | 16/100 ▲ | 10/100 |
| Property market | 32/100 ▲ | 30/100 |
Pillar scores are percentile ranks within each municipality's own country, so a 70 in Spain and a 70 in Italy each mean "ahead of 70% of this country's towns" — not that the two places are alike.
The underlying figures
| Indicator | Fort-de-France | Saint-Joseph |
|---|---|---|
| Population | 75,286 inhab. (2020) | 16,137 inhab. (2020) |
| Population trend (~10y) | -8.7% (2015→2020) declining — the key rural depopulation risk | -2.2% (2015→2020) declining — the key rural depopulation risk |
| Price (€/m²) | 2,539 €/m² ▲ 2020 data | 2,968 €/m² 2020 data |
| Price appreciation (~5y) | +1.3%/yr ▲ 2017→2023 | +1.1%/yr 2017→2023 |
| Gross rental yield | 7.4% ▲ est. from ANIL rent ÷ DVF price | 6.2% est. from ANIL rent ÷ DVF price |
| Tourism / short-let potential | 86.1 beds / 1,000 inhab. ▲ collective accommodation + second homes (INSEE bed equivalences) | 35.9 beds / 1,000 inhab. collective accommodation + second homes (INSEE bed equivalences) |
| Foreign residents | 5.21% (2021) ▲ | 1.06% (2021) |
| Everyday essentials | 0 of 4 in the municipality None mapped here | 0 of 4 in the municipality None mapped here |
| International airport | Gran Canaria (LPA) (4926.5 km) ▲ | Gran Canaria (LPA) (4922.4 km) |
Which way each is going
| Population momentum | Fort-de-France | Saint-Joseph |
|---|---|---|
| Annualised change | -1.80 %/yr 2015–2020 | -0.44 %/yr 2015–2020 |
Demographic momentum is an absolute rate and feeds no grade of its own — see the momentum pages.
How to read this
Grades are computed from official open data — statistics offices, hazard catalogues, land registries and OpenStreetMap — never from reviews, listings or opinion. Each indicator is ranked against the other municipalities of the same country, except the natural hazards, which are absolute 30-year probabilities and therefore mean the same thing everywhere.
That is why some rows above carry no comparison. Spain counts registered tourist dwellings where Italy counts every tourist bed place; each statistics office defines a foreign resident differently; the property-price vintages run from 2018 in Italy to 2025 in Portugal. Putting two such numbers side by side and calling the difference a finding would be inventing one, so the row states the reason instead.
Full method, sources and known gaps: the methodology page.