Marie-Galante is one of the islands that form Guadeloupe, an overseas department of France. Marie-Galante has a land area of 158.1 km2. It had 11,528 inhabitants at the start of 2013, but by the start of 2018 the total was officially estimated to be 10,655, with a population density of 62.5/km2 (162/sq mi).

Steven Callahan is an American author, naval architect, inventor, and sailor. In 1981, he survived for 76 days adrift on the Atlantic Ocean in a liferaft. Callahan recounted his ordeal in the best-selling book Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea (1986), which was on The New York Times best-seller list for more than 36 weeks.