The Dominican Republic (República Dominicana) is a country located on 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 Haiti.
The native Taíno people had inhabited Hispaniola before the arrival of the Europeans. The Taíno people had eventually moved north over many years, and lived around the Caribbean islands. Christopher Columbus explored and claimed the island, landing here on his first voyage in 1492. The colony of Santo Domingo became the site of the first permanent European settlement in the Americas and the first seat of the Spanish colonial rule in the New World.
Meanwhile, France occupied the western third of Hispaniola, naming their colony Saint-Domingue, which became the independent state of Haiti in 1804. The Dominican people declared independence in November 1821. The leader of the independence movement intended the Dominican nation to unite with the country of Gran Colombia, but the newly independent Dominicans were forcefully annexed by Haiti in February 1822. Independence came 22 years later in 1844 after victory in the Dominican War of Independence. The Dominican Republic briefly returned to Spanish colonial status before permanently ousting the Spanish during the Dominican War of Restoration of 1863–1865.
The United States occupied the country between 1916 and 1924. From 1930 the dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo ruled until 1961. A civil war in 1965, the country’s last, was ended by U.S. military occupation. Since 1978 the Dominican Republic has moved toward representative democracy.
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