Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic is on an island called Hispaniola.

It shares the island with Haiti. The sea is all around. The capital city is Santo Domingo.

The Dominican Republic is in the Caribbean, on the island of Hispaniola. Haiti covers the western third of the island, and the Dominican Republic covers the eastern two-thirds. The Caribbean Sea washes its southern shore and the Atlantic Ocean its northern shore.

The country also includes smaller islands such as Saona, Beata and Catalina. Its land is about half the size of Portugal. Spanish is the official language, and the first results of the 2022 census counted about 10.8 million people.

Britannica places the Dominican Republic on the eastern two-thirds of Hispaniola, the second largest island of the Greater Antilles. The Mona Passage, about 130 km wide, separates it from Puerto Rico; the Turks and Caicos Islands lie some 145 km north and Colombia about 500 km south. Some writers, Britannica notes, call the country a microcosm of Latin America.

The National Statistics Office (ONE) carried out the tenth national census in 2022; its preliminary results (August 2023) counted 10,760,028 inhabitants, and the final results presented in June 2024 counted 10,773,983, about 1.3 million more than in 2010. Wikidata gives an area of 48,671 km², including the adjacent islands. Spanish is the official language, and the currency is the Dominican peso.

Santo Domingo is the capital city.

It is by the sea. It is very old. The photo shows its tall buildings from above.

Santo Domingo, on the south coast, is the largest city. Spanish settlers founded it in the 1490s, so it is the oldest city built by Europeans in the Americas. Its old Colonial City has the first cathedral, hospital, customs house and university in the Americas. The photo looks over the modern city from a tall tower.

Santiago, in the green Cibao Valley, is the second largest city. Other towns include La Vega, San Francisco de Macorís, Puerto Plata on the north coast, and La Romana in the southeast.

Britannica dates Santo Domingo's founding to 1496 and calls it the first permanent town established by Europeans in the Americas; UNESCO, which inscribed its Colonial City in 1990, gives 1498 and notes that its grid plan became a model for town planners across the Americas. Its Spanish Renaissance cathedral was built between 1514 and 1542, and the city is the seat of the oldest Roman Catholic archbishopric in the Americas.

The Cibao Valley is densely settled around Santiago, the second city, which vies with the capital in politics, culture and business. Secondary centers include La Romana and San Pedro de Macorís in the southeast, Barahona in the southwest and Puerto Plata in the north. About four-fifths of Dominicans now live in cities and towns, after a steady move from the countryside since the mid-20th century.

The Dominican Republic has tall mountains.

Pico Duarte is the tallest mountain in the Caribbean. There is also a very salty lake. It is lower than the sea!

Long mountain ranges and green valleys run across the country from northwest to southeast. In the Cordillera Central rises Pico Duarte, 3,101 meters high, the tallest mountain in the Caribbean.

In the southwest lies Lake Enriquillo, the country's largest natural lake. Its salty water sits about 44 meters below sea level, the lowest point in the West Indies. It is warm all year, about 25 °C on average. The northeast is the rainiest part, the southwest is dry, and hurricanes can strike from August to October.

Britannica notes that the country holds both the highest and lowest elevations in the West Indies. Ranges and fertile valleys trend northwest to southeast: the Cordillera Septentrional, the Cibao Valley (watered by the Yaque del Norte and Camú-Yuna systems), the Cordillera Central, the San Juan Valley, the Sierra de Neiba and the Sierra de Baoruco. Wikidata gives Pico Duarte 3,101 m.

Saline Lake Enriquillo, about 37 km long and up to 18 km wide, has its surface about 44 m below sea level. The northeast trade winds bring more than 2,540 mm of rain a year to the windward northeast, while western valleys near the Haitian border get less than 760 mm. The annual mean temperature is 25 °C, from 21 °C in the high Cordillera Central to 28 °C on the coastal plains. Pines and tropical hardwoods still cover much of the mountains, and royal palms grow throughout much of the country.

Crocodiles swim in the salty lake.

Iguanas with little horns live nearby. Pink flamingos visit too. Big humpback whales come to warm water to have babies.

Lake Enriquillo is home to a large group of American crocodiles. Rhinoceros iguanas, named for the horn-like scales on their snouts, live around the lake and are found only on Hispaniola. Flamingos and many migrating birds rest and feed there.

Every winter, humpback whales swim south to the warm waters of the Dominican Republic to mate and give birth. A marine mammal sanctuary protects them, and it is a sister sanctuary to one off Massachusetts in the United States. The crocodile in the photo was photographed in Mexico.

WWF's Hispaniola ecoregion profile calls Lake Enriquillo the largest and most hypersaline lake in the Antilles and home to the largest population of American crocodiles (Crocodylus acutus), though at risk; the rhinoceros iguana (Cyclura cornuta), endemic to Hispaniola, and Ricord's iguana also live there, and flamingos use it for resting, feeding and breeding. Britannica notes that wild mammals are not abundant.

NOAA Fisheries reports that it and the Dominican Ministry of Environment set up the world's first sister sanctuaries for humpback whales: Stellwagen Bank off Massachusetts and the Marine Mammal Sanctuary of the Dominican Republic. About 900 humpbacks feed at Stellwagen in spring and summer, then head south in late fall to mate and calve in Dominican waters. The crocodile photo is from Mexico and the whale photo from French Polynesia.

People in the Dominican Republic speak Spanish.

They love music and dancing. Merengue is a happy dance. Baseball is the national pastime.

Most Dominicans have both African and European ancestors, and many families also came from places such as Spain's Canary Islands, Italy, China, Japan and the Middle East. Spanish is spoken everywhere, and many families have relatives in the United States.

Music and dancing matter at every age, and merengue is the best-known music. Baseball is a passion, and many Dominican players have joined major league teams. Rice, beans, plantains, seafood and tropical fruits are everyday foods, and Carnival brings colorful homemade masks to the streets, especially in Santiago.

Britannica describes a population predominantly of mixed African and European ancestry, with small Black and white minorities; some scholars argue the Taíno legacy, long thought nearly erased, survives more strongly in genes, language and material culture. Immigrants came in the 19th and 20th centuries from France, Italy, England, Germany, East Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, and Japanese farmers settled in the Constanza valley before World War II. Spanish predominates; a French Creole is spoken among Haitian immigrants, and more than four-fifths of people are Roman Catholic.

Merengue, bolero and salsa are popular, with festivals in Santo Domingo and Puerto Plata. U.S. Marines introduced baseball, and from the 1960s players such as Juan Marichal and the Alou brothers reached the major leagues. Carnival, held in the weeks before Lent, is especially colorful in Santiago, where homemade masks are a recognized art form.