| La Española (Spanish) | |
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View from Hispaniola |
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| Geography | |
| Location | Caribbean |
| Archipelago | Greater Antilles |
| Area | 76,480 km2 (29,529 sq mi) |
| Area rank | 22nd |
| Coastline | 3,059 km (1,900.8 mi) |
| Highest elevation | 3,175 m (10,417 ft)[1] |
| Highest point | Pico Duarte |
| Political division | |
| Demographics | |
| Population | 18,943,000[2] (as of 2005) |
| Density | 241.5 /km2 (625.5 /sq mi) |
Hispaniola (Spanish: La Española) is a major island in the Caribbean, containing the two sovereign states of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The island is located between the islands of Cuba to the west and Puerto Rico to the east, within the hurricane belt. Hispaniola is perhaps most famous as the site of the first European colonies in the New World, colonies founded by Christopher Columbus on his voyages in 1492 and 1493. It is the ninth-most-populous island in the world, and the most populous in the Americas. It is the second largest island in the Caribbean (after Cuba) and the 22nd-largest island in the world.
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The island bears various names originated by its native people, the Taíno Amerindians. When Columbus took possession of the island in 1492 he named it Hispana in Latin[3] and La Isla Española, meaning "The Spanish Island", in Spanish.[4] Bartolomé de las Casas shortened the name to "Española", and when Pietro Martyr d'Anghiera detailed his account of the island in Latin, he translated the name as Hispaniola.[4] Because Anghiera's literary work was translated into English and French in a short period of time, the name "Hispaniola" is the most frequently used term in English-speaking countries for the island in scientific and cartographic works.
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo and las Casas documented that the island was called Haití ("Mountainous Land") by the Taíno. D'Anghiera added another name, Quizqueia (supposedly "Mother of all Lands"), but later research shows that the word does not seem to derive from the original Arawak Taíno language.[5] Although the Taínos's use of Haití is verified and the name was used by all three historians, evidence suggests that it probably was not the Taíno name of the whole island. Haití was the Taíno name of a region (now known as Los Haitises) in the northeastern section of the present-day Dominican Republic. In the oldest documented map of the island, created by Andrés de Morales, that region is named Montes de Haití ("Haiti Mountains"). Las Casas apparently named the whole island Haití on the basis of that particular region;[6] d'Anghiera said that the name of one part was given to the whole island.[5]
The colonial terms Saint-Domingue and Santo Domingo are sometimes still applied to the whole island, although these names factually refer, respectively, to the colonies that became Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
The name Haïti was adopted by Haitian revolutionary Jean-Jacques Dessalines as the official name of independent Saint-Domingue, as a tribute to the Amerindian predecessors. Quisqueya (from Quizqueia) is used to refer to the Dominican Republic.
Christopher Columbus arrived at the island during his first voyage to America in 1492, where his flagship, the Santa Maria, sank. During his arrival he founded the settlement of La Navidad on the north coast of present day Haiti. On his return the subsequent year, following the disbandment of La Navidad, Columbus quickly founded a second settlement farther east in present day Dominican Republic, La Isabela, which became the first permanent European settlement in the Americas.
The island was inhabited by the Taínos, one of the indigenous Arawak peoples. The Taino were at first tolerant of Columbus and his crew, and helped him to construct La Navidad on what is now Môle Saint-Nicolas, Haiti, in December 1492. European colonization of the island began earnestly the following year, when 1,300 men arrived from Spain under the watch of Bartolomeo Columbus. In 1496 the town of Nueva Isabela was founded. After being destroyed by a hurricane, it was rebuilt on the opposite side of the Ozama River and called Santo Domingo. It is the oldest permanent European settlement in the Americas. The Taino population of the island was rapidly decimated, owing to a combination of disease and harsh treatment by Spanish overlords. In 1501, the colony began to import African slaves, believing them more capable of performing physical labor. The natives had no immunity to European diseases, including smallpox,[7] and entire tribes were destroyed.[8] From an estimated initial population of 250,000 in 1492, the Arawaks had dropped to 14,000 by 1517.[9]
In 1574, a census taken of the Greater Antilles, reported 1,000 Spaniards and 12,000 African slaves on Hispaniola.[10]
As Spain conquered new regions on the mainland of the Americas, its interest in Hispaniola waned, and the colony's population grew slowly. By the early 17th century, the island and its smaller neighbors (notably Tortuga) became regular stopping points for Caribbean pirates. In 1606, the king of Spain ordered all inhabitants of Hispaniola to move close to Santo Domingo, to avoid interaction with pirates. Rather than secure the island, however, this resulted in French, English and Dutch pirates establishing bases on the now-abandoned north and west coasts of the island.
In 1665, French colonization of the island was officially recognized by King Louis XIV. The French colony was given the name Saint-Domingue, which became present-day Haiti. In the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick, Spain formally ceded the western third of the island to France. Saint-Domingue quickly came to overshadow the east in both wealth and population. Nicknamed the "Pearl of the Antilles," it became the richest and most prosperous colony in the West Indies and one of the wealthiest in the world, cementing its status as the most important port in the Americas for goods and products flowing to and from Europe. After independence for Haiti, this reversed and Haiti became one of the poorest countries in the Americas, while the Dominican Republic developed into the largest economy of Central America and the Caribbean.
Hispaniola is the second-largest island in the Caribbean (after Cuba), with an area of 76,480 square kilometers (29,530 sq mi). Haiti has 10,620 square miles (27,500 km2); the Dominican Republic 18,704 square miles (48,440 km2).[11]
The island of Cuba lies 80 kilometers (50 mi) to the northwest across the Windward Passage; to the southwest lies Jamaica, separated by the Jamaica Channel. Puerto Rico lies east of Hispaniola across the Mona Passage. The Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands lie to the north. Its westernmost point is known as Cap Carcasse.
Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico are collectively known as the Greater Antilles. The Greater Antilles are made up of continental rock, as distinct from the Lesser Antilles, which are mostly young volcanic or coral islands.
The island has five major mountain ranges: The Central Range, known in the Dominican Republic as the Cordillera Central, spans the central part of the island, extending from the south coast of the Dominican Republic into northwestern Haiti, where it is known as the Massif du Nord. This mountain range boasts the highest peak in the Antilles, Pico Duarte at 3,087 meters (10,128 ft) above sea level. The Cordillera Septentrional runs parallel to the Central Range across the northern end of the Dominican Republic, extending into the Atlantic Ocean as the Samaná Peninsula. The Cordillera Central and Cordillera Septentrional are separated by the lowlands of the Cibao Valley and the Atlantic coastal plains, which extend westward into Haiti as the Plaine du Nord (Northern Plain). The lowest of the ranges is the Cordillera Oriental, in the eastern part of the country.
The Sierra de Neiba rises in the southwest of the Dominican Republic, and continues northwest into Haiti, parallel to the Cordillera Central, as the Montagnes Noires, Chaîne des Matheux and the Montagnes du Trou d'Eau. The Plateau Central lies between the Massif du Nord and the Montagnes Noires, and the Plaine de l'Artibonite lies between the Montagnes Noires and the Chaîne des Matheux, opening westward toward the Gulf of Gonâve, the largest gulf of the Antilles.
The southern range begins in the southwestern most Dominican Republic as the Sierra de Bahoruco, and extends west into Haiti as the Massif de la Selle and the Massif de la Hotte, which form the mountainous spine of Haiti's southern peninsula. Pic de la Selle is the highest peak in the southern range, the third highest peak in the Antilles and consequently the highest point in Haiti, at 2,680 meters (8,790 ft) above sea level. A depression runs parallel to the southern range, between the southern range and the Chaîne des Matheux-Sierra de Neiba. It is known as the Plaine du Cul-de-Sac in Haiti, and Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince lies at its western end. The depression is home to a chain of salt lakes, including Lake Azuei in Haiti and Lake Enriquillo in the Dominican Republic.
Haiti has 9 million inhabitants, the Dominican Republic, 9.6 million. Life expectancy is 61 years in Haiti, 73.7 years in the Dominican Republic. Literacy rate (over 15 years old) is 52.9% in Haiti, 87% in the Dominican Republic.[11]
The annual per capita income is $1,300 in Haiti, $8,200 in the Dominican Republic.[11]
The climate of Hispaniola is generally humid and tropical. The island has four distinct ecoregions. The Hispaniolan moist forests ecoregion covers approximately 50% of the island, especially the northern and eastern portions, predominantly in the lowlands but extending up to 2,100 meters (6,900 ft) elevation. The Hispaniolan dry forests ecoregion occupies approximately 20% of the island, lying in the rain shadow of the mountains in the southern and western portion of the island and in the Cibao valley in the center-north of the island. The Hispaniolan pine forests occupy the mountainous 15% of the island, above 850 metres (2,790 ft) elevation. The flooded grasslands and savannas ecoregion in the south central region of the island surrounds a chain of lakes and lagoons in which the most notable include that of Lake Azuei and Trou Caïman in Haiti and the nearby Lake Enriquillo in the Dominican Republic.
In Haiti, deforestation has long been cited by scientists as a source of ecological crisis; the timber industry dates back to the French colonial occupation.