In which quarter house in Nouméa?

Are you going to New Caledonia, about 17,000 kilometers from Metropolitan France? Here are the neighborhoods where to stay in Nouméa!

Head of the French Outre-Mer community of New Caledonia, Nouméa is a port city southwest of the island, located on a peninsula southwest of the Great Earth. The population, very mixed – made up of Europeans, metropolitans (the “shrinks”), Kanaks, Polynesians and Asians – is about 180,000 people in the urban area, for a municipal population of about 100,000 inhabitants. This makes it the largest Francophone city in Oceania and the third most populous city in the France overseas. Created in 1854 under the name of Port-de-France by the French, Nouméa developed with colonization and mining activity.

Nouméa is one of the most industrialized cities in the French overseas region as well as a seaside zone of great importance: Nouméa is sometimes called the “little Nice ", and even sometimes "Paris of the Pacific" because of the luxury boutiques that sprinkle the pavement of Nouméa.

Are you looking for a place to sleep in Nouméa? Careful, it can be expensive. A demographic and social segregation is observed between the southern and northern districts, with the wealthy classes in the southern and most popular in the north. Here is a presentation of the areas to choose to stay in Nouméa.

Downtown

Turning to the lagoon, Nouméa represents the quintessence of the Pacific: a small port where it makes a good stroll along the edge of the seafront, a diversity of cultures and styles, beautiful colonial buildings.

Organised around the Place des Cocotiers, the city centre of Nouméa is the colonial district, where we find 19th century buildings: the Céleste Fountain , Saint Joseph Cathedral, the Old Protestant temple. Incontournables des lieux, these are to be discovered by your wanderings or, for a complete cultural parenthesis, the time of a guided tour of Nouméa.

The old centre is structured according to a damier plan and houses many shops – clothes, bookstores, luxury products, jewellery – and buildings dating from the " nickel boom", during the 1960s-1970s. Accommodation in the city centre offers a central position, not far from the marine station. Situated on its southern side, is the Latin Quarter , very tourist and cultural. There are bars, restaurants, museums – the New Caledonia Museum for example -, the market and Port Moselle, the marina of the city.

Baie des Citrons

Located less than 10 minutes from the city centre, the Baie des Citrons is a trendy seaside town, and attracts a rather easy population of tourists and locals.

If you want to party, this is where you have to choose to stay in Nouméa: bars, discotheques sometimeson along the Roger Laroque promenade, which overlooks the beach of the Citrons bay, one kilometre long. Life never stops there, between the beach in the day and the party during the night. The Baie des Citrons is sheltered from the winds, making it an ideal place of walk and a privileged place to swim in the calm and warm waters of the South Pacific.

L’Anse Vata

Located between the Rocher César, towards the Magnin point, and the famous Rocher à la Voile, Anse Vata is one of the most touristic districts of Nouméa, with a long beach – the beach of the Anse Vata – stretched on the Roger Laroque promenade, a succession of bars, restaurants and nightclubs in a row and many hotels where to stay. Here you will find airs from Côte d’Azur but in a tropical version. Since it is a very crowded area, staying at the Anse Vata promises to be more expensive than to the neighborhoods northerly. Good to know: Although very popular, the Anse Vata is not very close to the two airports in Nouméa, so think if you stay in the area, anticipate your journeys.