Dominican Republic

Santo Domingo was founded by Bartholomew Columbus in 1496 and served as the first capital of Spanish colonial rule in the Americas. Its Zona Colonial, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, contains the oldest cathedral, hospital, customs house, and university in the New World. This deep history gives the Dominican Republic a cultural weight that belies its size.

The Dominican economy is the largest in the Caribbean and Central America. Tourism is the leading sector, but the country has also diversified into manufacturing — particularly textiles and cigars in free trade zones — remittances from a large diaspora, and agriculture including sugarcane, coffee, and cacao. The country shares Hispaniola with Haiti but the two nations diverge sharply in economic development, separated by one of the starkest borders in the hemisphere.