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Santo Domingo

Capital of Dominican RepublicWhere the Ozama River flows into the Caribbean Sea, Santo Domingo spreads along the south coast of Hispaniola, in the Dominican Republic.

Why it's the capital

Bartholomew Columbus founded the settlement for Spain in 1496, and it became the first seat of Spanish colonial rule in the New World. When the Dominican Republic won independence from Haiti on 27 February 1844, Santo Domingo became the capital of the free nation.

Fun facts

  1. It is the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the Americas.
  2. The city had the first cathedral, university, castle, monastery and fortress in the New World.
  3. From 1936 to 1961 the city was called Ciudad Trujillo, after the dictator Rafael Trujillo.

Finding it on the globe

Find Hispaniola, the island shared by Haiti in the west and the Dominican Republic in the east. Santo Domingo is on the south coast of the eastern part, about in the middle of that coast.

Easy to mix up

The Dominican Republic is a different country from Dominica, a small island nation to the southeast whose capital is Roseau.

Sources: Wikipedia: Santo Domingo, Wikipedia: Hispaniola, Wikipedia: Dominica