DescriptionHispaniola is an island in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean, located between Cuba and Puerto Rico. It is the most populous island in the West Indies, and the second-largest by land area, after Cuba. Covering an area of 76,192-square-kilometre (29,418 sq mi), it 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 Ciboney and Classic 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 by 1659. The most commonly used name for the island is Española (little Spain), whose Latinized form 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.

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