Saint Martin Island is a coral island located in the north-eastern part of the Bay of Bengal in the south of Bangladesh. It is situated at the mouth of the Naf river of Taknaf coast of Cox's Bazar district. It is known locally as Nadiqal Zinjara, due to its abundance of Coconut. It is a very familiar name to the sea lovers of Bangladesh. The identity of this island increases further by the famous writer, fame Humayun Ahmed's Cinnamon Island.
It was not known when the first person identified this island. The first few Arab merchants named the island named Zinzira. Note that they used to travel from Chittagong to South-East Asia for the rest of the island. The people of Chittagong and other people area knew this island as Jinnijira. People of some Bengali and Raikan communities came to settle on this island in the year 1890. They were mainly fishermen. It is known that 13 families had settled as the first inhabitants.
They chose the northern tip of the island. In time, this island turned into a Bengali-dominated area. Already on this island, there were Keya and Tzau trees. Perhaps the Bengali fishermen planted a lot of coconut trees on this island as a means of watering and exhaustion. By the time the entire island once became the main island of coconut trees. In this form, local residents started calling the northern part of this island as coconut Jinzira.
In the year 1900, the British Geo group adopted the island as part of British India. Instead of the local name of the survey, St. Martin's name of Christain St. Martin. The area of St. Martin's Island is 8 square kilometres. The three sides of this island are awakening at the time of the rocks that all during the tide. If you think of them, the size of this island will be about 15 sq km. The height of this island from the sea level is about 4 metres. About 15 kilometres of coral reefs in the west-north-west of this island are in Dac.
Geographically, it is divided into three parts. On this island, the islands of 100 to 500 square metres are small islands which are known as the torn island. These are deserted islands. During the tide, these islands can be used to walk. During the tide, the boat has to go through.
The landscape of this island is mainly flat. But some sand dunes are seen. The main structure of this island is limestone. There is a swamp in the north and south parts of this island. These are rich in sweet water and are helpful in crop production. This island is produced in some agricultural crops which are less than necessary. On this island, there are many species of Coral, snail-mussels, marine algae, enigmatic plants and sea fishes.
Marine algae is abundantly available on this island which is very popular in the outside world. Invertebrates include sponges, rock crabs, snails, lobster etc. The fish contains fairy fish, bolts, ranga ki, sui fish, redfish, flying fish etc. This island is the place for laying eggs of marine turtles, green ocean cysts and olive oil species of reds sea.
There is no mention of natural forest except for the keora Forest on the island. However, there are plenty of bushy bushes on the south side of the island. There are some mangrove trees.
"Photo was taken from various photographers of Bangladesh"
About 125 years ago people started settling here. Currently, there are more than seven thousand people living here.