Hispaniola

• «Isla Española» and «San Domingo» Hispaniola is an island between Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and the second-largest by land area, after Cuba. The 76,192-square-kilometre (29,418 sq mi) island is divided into two separate sovereign countries: the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic (48,445 km2 (18,705 sq mi) to the east and the French and Haitian Creole–speaking Haiti (27,750 km2 (10,710 sq mi) to the west. The only other divided island in the Caribbean is Saint Martin, which is shared between France (Saint Martin) and the Netherlands (Sint Maarten). Before the European arrival of Christopher Columbus, Hispaniola was home to the Taíno people. The Taíno people lived in small villages that were led by chiefs called caciques. 

The Taíno people grew staple foods such as cassava (a root vegetable) and maize (corn). Spiritually, Taíno worshipped protective spiritual entities called zemís (Zemí’no).

• La Española (Spanish)
• Hispaniola (French)
• Ispayola (Haitian Creole)
• Ayití, Bohío, Babeque (Taino)
• Quisqueya (Ciguayo)

View from the ISS, 2011

Geography

Location

Caribbean Sea

Coordinates

19°N 71°W

Archipelago

Greater Antilles

Major islands

• Gonâve
• Saona
• Navassa
• Beata
• Île-à-Vache
• Catalina
• Tortuga
• Alto Velo

Area

76,192 km2 (29,418 sq mi)

Area rank

22nd

Coastline

3,059 km (1900.8 mi)

Highest elevation

3,175 m (10417 ft)

Highest point

Pico Duarte

Administration

Dominican Republic

10,815,857

Capital and largest city

Santo Domingo (pop. 1,029,117)

Area covered

48,445 km2 (18,705 sq mi; 63.6%)

11,753,943

Capital and largest city

Port-au-Prince (pop. 1,234,742)

Area covered

27,747 km2 (10,713 sq mi; 36.4%)

Demographics

Population

22,569,800 (2024;

both countries’ estimates combined)

Pop. density

280.8/km2 (727.3/sq mi)

Ethnic groups

Dominicans, Haitians

Hispaniola is the site of one of the first European forts in the Americas, La Navidad (1492–1493), as well as the first settlement La Isabela (1493–1500), and the first permanent settlement, the current capital of the Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo (est. 1498). These settlements were founded successively during each of Christopher Columbus‘s first three voyages.

The Spanish Empire controlled the entire island of Hispaniola from the 1490s until the 17th century, when French pirates began establishing bases on the western side of the island. The official name was La Española, meaning «The Spanish (Island)». It was also called Santo Domingo, after Saint Dominic.

The island was called various names by its native people, the Taíno. The Taino had no written language, hence, historical evidence for these names comes through three European historians: the Italian Peter Martyr d’Anghiera, and the Spaniards Bartolomé de las Casas and Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo. Based on a comprehensive survey and map prepared by Andrés de Morales in 1508, Martyr reported that the island as a whole was called Quizquella (or Quisqueya) and Ayiti referred to a rugged mountainous region on the western end of the island.

Diego Álvarez Chanca, a physician on Columbus’s second voyage, also noted that «Ayiti» or Haïti was the easternmost province of the island, an area in the Dominican Republic called «Los Haitises» national park. On the other hand, Oviedo and Las Casas both recorded that the entire island was called Ayiti by the Taíno.

When Columbus took possession of the island in 1492, he named it Insula Hispana in Latin and La Isla Española in Spanish, both meaning «the Spanish island». Las Casas shortened the name to Española, and when Peter Martyr detailed his account of the island in Latin, he rendered its name as Hispaniola.

Due to Taíno, Spanish and French influences on the island, historically the whole island was often referred to as Haïti, Hayti, Santo Domingo, or Saint-Domingue. Martyr’s literary work was translated into English and French soon after being written, the name Hispaniola became the most frequently used term in English-speaking countries for the island in scientific and cartographic works. In 1918, the United States occupation government, led by Harry Shepard Knapp, obliged the use of the name Hispaniola on the island, and recommended the use of that name to the National Geographic Society.

The name «Haïti» was adopted by Haitian revolutionary Jean-Jacques Dessalines in 1804, as the official name of independent Saint-Domingue, in tribute to the Amerindian predecessors. It was also adopted as the official name of independent Santo Domingo, as the Republic of Spanish Haiti, a state that existed from November 1821 until its annexation by Haiti in February 1822.