Dominican Republic

Territory in the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, ruled since 1961 by the República Dominicana

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The Dominican_Republic (Spanish: República Dominicana) is a country located in the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands, along with Saint Martin, that are shared by two countries. The Dominican Republic is the second-largest Caribbean nation by area (after Cuba) at 48,445 square kilometers, and third by population with approximately 10 million people, of which approximately three million live in the metropolitan area of Santo Domingo, the capital city.

Geographical type: Island Territory

Latitude: 19° N — Longitude: 70.67° W

Area: 48,442 km²

ISO 3166-2 code: DO

Measures of Freedom

Dominican Republic: Country Profile, Freedom in the World, 2025
Status: Partly Free, Aggregate Score: 68/100, Political Rights: 27/40, Civil Liberties: 41/60

The Dominican Republic holds regular elections that are generally free and competitive. Pervasive corruption undermines state institutions and the use of excessive force by police remains a problem. Journalists risk intimidation and violence when investigating sensitive political issues. Discrimination against Dominicans of Haitian descent and Haitian migrants, as well as against LGBT+ people, remain serious issues.

Economic Freedom Summary Index, Economic Freedom of the World, 25 Sep 2025
2022 overall score: 7.37, rank: 47

Human Freedom Index [PDF], The Human Freedom Index 2023: A Global Measurement of Personal, Civil, and Economic Freedom
2021: 7.56, Rank: 54, Personal freedom: 7.74, Economic freedom: 7.30

Articles

The Secret State, by Carl Oglesby, KenRahn.com, 19 Dec 1991
Speech to the Massachusetts Libertarian Party; details various events from the 1945 dismantling of the Office of Strategic Services to the 1991 death of Danny Casolaro, which Oglesby said were reason to be worried about "a secret and invisible state"

1965: The DR
An uprising in the Dominican Republic was put down with the help of 20,000 U.S. Marines. Ellsworth Bunker, the U.S. ambassador, Abe Fortas, a new Supreme Court justice and a crony of LBJ's, presidential advisors Adolf Berle, Averill Harriman and Joseph Farland were all on the payroll of organizations such as the National Sugar Refining Company, the Sucrest Company, the National Sugar Company, and the South Puerto Rico Sugar Company—all of which had holdings in the Dominican Republic that were threatened by the revolution.

The introductory paragraph uses material from the Wikipedia article "Dominican Republic" as of 22 Sep 2018, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.