About the Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic is a country which shares the Island of Hispaniola with Haiti. Santo Domingo, its capital, was Christopher Columbus’ first landing site.

Since 1844, when the country finally gained independence from Spain and Haiti, the country has been marked with political instability and corruption. As a result, there has developed a large gap between the extremely wealthy and the very poor.

The country’s spiritual makeup is approximately 6% Protestant, 7% Practicing Roman Catholic and the remaining majority is a mixture of Non-practicing Roman Catholic, Voodoo and Atheism. Evangelical Christians have seen significant increases in their numbers in all denominations, but there are many villages and towns in the country that still have no evangelical work. Operation World lists the Dominican Republic as one of the least evangelized countries of Latin America.

Of the roughly 9,000,000 inhabitants about 1,000,000 are Haitian. Animosity and suspicion of Haitians among Dominicans is deeply rooted. Haitians are officially permitted to cut down the sugar cane crops, but are not allowed to attend government schools. They also are often refused health care at both private and public hospitals.

The landscape of the Dominican Republic is beautiful and has many tourists. Tourism is one of the countries largest industries. There is another side to the Dominican Republic, poverty. There are many poor villages where they do not have basic living accommodations such as running water, sanitation and clean water.

 The pictures to the right show the contrast somewhat.