Dominican Republic Information Guide & Facts

 Dominican Republic

Area: 48,422 sq km (18,696 sq miles).
Population: 8,518,483 (official estimate 2000).
Population Density: 175.9 per sq km.
Capital: Santo Domingo. Population: 2,677,056 (official estimate 2000).

Geopgraphy: The Dominican Republic is in the Caribbean, sharing the island of Hispaniola with Haiti and constituting the eastern two-thirds of land. The landscape is forested and mountainous, with valleys, plains and plateaux. The soil is fertile with excellent beaches on the north, southeast and east coasts, rising up to the mountains. 
Language: Spanish is the official language. Some English and French are spoken.
Religion: Almost all Christian, with 95 per cent Roman Catholic; there are small Protestant and Jewish minorities.
Time: GMT - 4.
Climate: Hot with tropical temperatures all year. Rainy season is from June to October. Hurricanes may sometimes occur during this time.

Electricity: 110 volts AC, 60Hz. American-style two-pin plugs are in use.
Telephone: Full IDD available. Country code: 1 809. Outgoing international code: 011. CODETEL, Dominican Republic’s telecommunications company has produced the Comunicard, which enables tourists visiting the country to phone anywhere abroad from any touchtone phone. For further information contact CODETEL, Av Tiradentes 1169, Santo Domingo (tel: 220 5168; fax: 549 4721; e-mail ayuda@codetel.com.do; website: www.codetel.net.do).
Mobile telephone: GSM 1900 network exists; the main network provider is Orange (website: www.orange.com.do).
Fax: There are facilities at most locations and many hotels and telecommunications centres offer this service.
Internet: ISPs include Codetel (website: www.codetel.net.do).
Telegram: These may be sent from RCA Global Communications Inc., Santo Domingo, or from ITT-America Cables and Radio Inc., Santo Domingo. Large hotels have facilities.
Post: Airmail takes about 10 days to reach western Europe. It is advisable to post all mail at the Central Post Office in Santo Domingo to ensure rapid handling.
Press: All daily papers are in Spanish and include Hoy, Listín Diario and El Nacional. The English-language Santo Domingo News is published weekly on Wednesday and may be obtained in hotels. Dominicana News, a monthly Tourism Promotion Council publication, has the main Dominicana tourism industry items.
Radio: BBC World Service (website: www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice) and Voice of America (website: www.voa.gov) can be received. From time to time the frequencies change and the most up-to-date can be found online.

History

The island of Hispaniola, of which the Dominican Republic forms the eastern two-thirds and Haiti the remainder, was originally occupied by the Tainos, an Arawak speaking people. The Tainos welcomed Colombus in his first voyage in 1492, but subsequent colonisers were brutal, reducing the Taino population from about 1 million to about 500 in 50 years. To ensure adequate labour for plantations, the Spanish brought African slaves to the island beginning in 1503.

In the next century, French settlers occupied the western end of the island, which Spain ceded to France in 1697, and which, in 1804, became the Republic of Haiti. The Haitians conquered the whole island in 1822 and held it until 1844, when forces led by Juan Pablo Duarte, the hero of Dominican independence, drove them out and established the Dominican Republic as an independent state. In 1861, the Dominicans voluntarily returned to the Spanish Empire; in 1865, independence was restored. Economic difficulties, the threat of European intervention, and ongoing internal disorders led to a US occupation in 1916 and the establishment of a military government in the Dominican Republic. The occupation ended in 1924, with a democratically elected Dominican government. In 1930, Rafael L. Trujillo, a prominent army commander, established absolute political control. Trujillo promoted economic development - from which he and his supporters benefited - and severe repression of domestic human rights. Mismanagement and corruption resulted in major economic problems. In August 1960, The Organisation of American States (OAS) imposed diplomatic sanctions against the Dominican Republic as a result of Trujillo's complicity in an attempt to assassinate President Romulo Betancourt of Venezuela. These sanctions remained in force after Trujillo's death by assassination in May 1961. In November 1961, the Trujillo family was forced into exile.

In January 1962, a council of state that included moderate opposition elements with legislative and executive powers was formed. OAS sanctions were lifted 4 January, and, after the resignation of President Joaquin Balaguer on 16 January, the council under President Rafael E. Bonnelly headed the Dominican government. In 1963, Juan Bosch was inaugurated President. Bosch was overthrown in a military coup in September 1963.

The Taina Culture

In 1492 Christofer Columbus reached the coasts of the island and discovered in its inhabitants taínos, an indigenous race whose name in arawaca language means good or noble. The taínos inhabited this island from the year 800 A.D.

They were organized in tribal units that were governed daily and dedicated to a simple and rich sedentary life in religious traditions and agriculturists, the influence of his culture on our island is most abundant in the area of the Caribbean.

Nevertheless, the discovery and its methods of conquest exterminated this race in an approximated period of 50 years, which limited the impact of this indigenous culture on the Dominican one.

The colonization system had to bring to the American Continent, stronger and more resistant people to the hard tasks of labour.

Agriculture

The Taínos left a great social inheritance to us, to mention just a few, for example: several plants domesticated like yautía, the tobacco, ñame, the peanut, the maize, the mapuey and neadless to say the yucca and the elaboration of cazabe, whose process stays almost intact to the present time. They are the surviving inheritance taína left after the conquest.

Rock Art and Crafts

The great development reached in the artistic and artisan activities was the most characteristic of this society.

The preparation of an extraordinary ceramics for funeral and ritual aims and the manufacture of an enormous amount of ídolos, amulets and other articles of luxuries, made in stone, wood, shell, bone and other materials that were not as preserved, as those of cotton and others (whose semi main is in the Museum of Turin, Italy).

There are samples of the rock art taíno in different localities of the island like in the caves of the Wonders and the Pomier; also, at the Enriquillo Lake you see the famous Caritas.

Other caves known by their picturesque formations are in the Park of the East and the Haitises.

The pottery pieces of taína found in our island are of superior quality to those of other islands, like the líticos devices and in wood that conformed all of the equipment for the accomplishment of magical religious taínos rituals.

Two most important products of basketwork that are the inheritance of this pre-Columbian culture is the hammock and the knapsack.

Arts and Craft

The painting and Dominican sculpture began their development with the emigration of artists and Spanish intellectuals who fled from the Spanish civil war and settled down in our country.

The artisan inheritance data from times of the taínos, craftsmen by nature and prevails with the manufacture in the way of the taína of trays, higueros, hammocks, knapsacks and baskets, which are important pieces of the present Dominican crafts.

Amber, stone of color brown yellowish formed by resin of trees and whose basic characteristics is that frequently it contains fossils of insects and small already extinct plants, is the national semiprecious stone. Beautiful jewels, earrings, necklaces, portfolios and others are elaborated of amber.

The amber museums in Santo Domingo and Port Silver have beautiful collections, in addition of which diverse pieces can be obtained in almost all the stores of crafts of the country.

The Larimar is also recognized as a precious stone. Its blue-sky color makes it suitable for beautiful pieces of jewelry as well as for decoration. Larimar is found only in our country, it is a unique blue amber in the world.

Historical Places to Visit

The Colonial Zone of the city of Santo Domingo is richest of the Caribbean in architecture and memories of the colonial time: impressive monuments magnificently conserved and strengths and churches where they prioritize the brick and the stone in harmonious arcs and columns; stone alleys, streets, ruins, and impressive houses of important colonial personages turn this zone a wonderful trip to the past.

Spanish inheritance that subsists to the colony is in the architecture of coralline stone houses which the people living around them call Spanish patio or central patio, scenery with sources, vegetation and tiles which confirm the presence of the Arab culture in the Spain of that time, and therefore in our colonial architecture.

Some of the places baring this architecture are: the Basilica of Our Lady of the Incarnation, Prioritized Cathedral of America, the Palace of Columbus, the Ruins of San Francisco, the Ruins of the Hospital Nicholas de Bari, the House of the Cord, the Ozama Fortress, the Museo de Las Casas Reales, the Mausoleo of the Próceres and the Street of the Ladies.

In the city of Port Silver, the fortress of San Felipe is the oldest fortress of this time that remains intact.