Hispaniola

Hispaniola (/ˌhɪspənˈjoʊlə/, also UK: /-pænˈ-/) is an island between Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and the second-largest by land area, after Cuba. The 76,192-square-kilometre (29,418 sq mi) island is divided into two separate sovereign countries: the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic (48,445 km² (18,705 sq mi)) to the east and the French and Haitian Creole–speaking Haiti (27,750 km² (10,710 sq mi)) to the west. The only other divided island in the Caribbean is Saint Martin, which is shared between France (Saint Martin) and the Netherlands (Sint Maarten). At the time of the European arrival of Christopher Columbus, Hispaniola was home to the Ciguayo, Macorix, and Taíno native peoples.

Hispaniola is the site of the first European fort in the Americas, La Navidad (1492–1493), the first settlement, La Isabela (1493–1500), and the first permanent settlement, the capital of the Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo (1498–present). These settlements were founded successively during each of Christopher Columbus's first three voyages under the patronage of the Spanish Empire.

The Spanish controlled the entire island of Hispaniola from 1492 until the 17th century, when French pirates began establishing bases on the western side of the island, which resulted in the creation of the Saint-Domingue colony under the French Empire in 1659. The most commonly used name for the island is Española ("little Spain"), which latinized from is Hispaniola. The name of Santo Domingo, after Saint Dominic de Guzmán, the Castilian Catholic priest founder of the Dominican Order, is also widely used, as it is the name of the oldest political and commercial center of the island, the city of Santo Domingo.