Welcome to Castries!
Castries is the capital city of Saint Lucia. Founded by the French in 1650, Castries now has a population of just over 11,000.
Of itself, Castries doesn't have a huge amount to offer visitors, and it's usually just a place that you'll pass through on your way to the more obvious attractions of Saint Lucia.
Even though Castries doesn't have much to offer, you can usually find a fair number of tourists wandering about the place, as the cruise ships that visit Saint Lucia dock at Pointe Seraphine, in the northern part of the city.
Castries, population 20,000, aggl. 53,639, is the capital and largest city of Saint Lucia, an island country in the Caribbean. The district with the same name had a population of 70,000 on 22 May 2013 and stretches over an area of 80 km2 (31 sq mi). Castries is in 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, ferry boats, and cruise ships. It houses duty-free shopping facilities such as Point Seraphine and La Place Carenage. The city is well served by a bus system and taxi service. St Lucia's main post office is in Castries.
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.
