The Dominican Republic covers the eastern two-thirds of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. The capital city is Santo Domingo, located on the south coast of the island. Spanish is the official language. Though English is widely spoken in major cities and tourist areas, it is much less common outside these areas.
To give you a sense of size, the Dominican Republic is about the size of the state of Maryland in the US or a little larger than the country of the Netherlands. With that much land area it is not surprising that the country is quite diversified in geographic terms. Large valleys with lakes are surrounded by mountains rising to 9,000 feet and 1000 miles of coastline with over 200 miles of beautiful sandy beaches.
Taínos inhabited what is now the Dominican Republic sincethe 7th century. Christopher Columbus landed on it in 1492, and it became the site of the first permanent European settlement in the Americas, namely SantoDomingo, the country\\\'s capital and Spain\\\'s first capital in the New World.Santo Domingo can boast of many firsts in the Americas, including the firstcathedral, and castle, both in the Ciudad Colonial area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The climate of the Dominican Republic is mostly tropical.The annual average temperature is 77 °F. At higher elevations, the temperature averages 64°F while near sea level the average temperature is 82°F. Low temperatures of 32°F are possible in the mountains while high temperatures of 104°Fare possible in protected valleys. January and February are the coolest months of the year, while August is the hottest month. Some snowflakes can fall in rare occasions on the top of the Pico Duarte.
Quick Facts
Population: 10,088,598
Capital: Santo Domingo
Per-capita GDP: $ 9400
Size: 48,670 km2
Time Zone: (GMT - 04:00 hours) Atlantic Time (Canada)
Country information is adapted from public domain resources including the CIA World Fact Book and www.Wikipedia.org.
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