The Dominican Republic is a North American Country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles on the Caribbean Sea, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the North.

It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which is shared with Haiti. This makes Hispaniola one of the only two Caribbean Islands, along with Saint Martin, which is shared by two sovereign states.

 

The native people had inhabited Hispaniola before the arrival of the Europeans. Christopher Columbus claimed the island for Castile, landing there on his first voyage in 1492. The colony of Santo Domingo became the site of the first permanent European settlement in the Americas.

In 1697 Spain, recognized French dominion over the western third of the island, which became the independent First Empire of Haiti in 1804.

A group of Dominicans deposed the Spanish governor and declared independent from Spain in November of 1821, but were annexed by Haiti in February of 1822.

 

After independence in the later part of 1844, the Dominican Republic experienced several civil wars, failed invasions by Haiti, and a brief return to Spanish colonial status, before permanently ousting the Spanish during the Dominican war of Restoration of 1863 to 1865.

From 1930, the dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo ruled until his assassination in 1961.

 

In 1962, Juan Bosch was elected president but was deposed in a military coup in 1963. The Dominican Republic civil war of 1965 was followed by the authoritarian rule of Joaquin Balaguer, from 1966 to 1978, and from 1986 to 1996. The Dominican Republic became a democratic country in 1978 until.

 

Since then, the Dominican Republic has become the largest economic nation in the Caribbean, and the seventh largest in Latin America. Recent growth has been driven by construction, manufacturing, tourism, and gold mining.  

 

The Dominican Republic is the most visited destination in the Caribbean, with year round golf courses, and resorts are the major attractions. A geographically diverse nation, the Dominican Republic is home to both the Caribbean tallest mountain peak, Pico Duarte, and the Caribbean largest lake, Lake Enriquillo.  The island is also the site of the first Cathedral, Castle, Monastery, and fortress built in the Americas, located in the Santo Domingo Colonial Zon, the World Heritage Site.