Hispaniola, an island in the Caribbean Sea at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, is land controlled by two countries; the Dominican Republic and Haïti. It is situated to the east of Cuba.

There were two sets of immigration to the island, the first being natives of Central America, and the second from Amazonia, in South America. These second inhabitants were descended from the Arawakan tribe, and were called the Taino. It was these people whom Christopher Columbus encountered on his first voyage to the New World.

Columbus discovered the island in 1492, giving it the name Española, to mean that it was property of Spain. Haïti, the western half of the island, was ceded to France in 1697, and the Dominican Republic was formed on February 27, 1844.

In 1518, smallpox was introduced to this small island, and inside of a hundred years, the native population was decimated.

The geography is such: tropical rain forest valleys, contrasted by dry, rolling plains, with golden sandy beaches surrounding a third of the 1400 km coastline.

Mountain Ranges
Cordilla Centrale - with Pico Duarte, the highest point in the Caribbean, at 3175m.
Cordillera Septentrionale
Cordillera Oriental
Bahoruca
Neiba Sierra
Sierra de Bohoruco

The saltwater Lake Enriquillo is the lowest point in the Caribbean, at -27m.

Hispaniola is also the name of the ship in the 1883 Robert Louis Stevenson novel, Treasure Island.

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