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The Dominican Republic occupies the eastern two-thirds of Hispaniola, the second-largest island in the Caribbean after Cuba. The separate nation of Haiti, with which it shares a 170-mile frontier, occupies the western third of the island.
Situated about midway between North and South America, Hispaniola is sandwiched between the Caribbean Sea to the south and the Atlantic Ocean to the north. Jamaica and Cuba are to the west, while Puerto Rico lies east across the 70-mile Mona Passage. The DR is about 600 miles southeast of the southern tip of Florida.
Shaped like an irregular triangle, with its short side as the Haitian border and its two longer sides as coastline, the Dominican Republic has a land area of about 18,700 square miles, making it about the size of the states of New Hampshire and Vermont combined. With a population of about nine million as of 2006 (the second highest in the Caribbean after Cuba), the DR has a population density of 480 per square mile. About two-thirds of its people now live in cities, including nearly three million in and around the capital city of Santo Domingo and 800,000 in Santiago de los Caballeros. Ethnically, 16% of the country’s population is classified as white, 11% black, and 73% of mixed race.
Most of the rural population still makes its living from subsistence farming. State-owned sugar plantations provide the major agricultural export. Other important crops include corn, rice, cotton, coffee, cocoa, tobacco, and fruit. Key natural resources include nickel, gold, silver, and bauxite.
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