Home › Countries › North America
Dominica
The wild Nature Isle of the Caribbean
Dominica, not to be confused with the Dominican Republic, styles itself the Nature Isle, and the name fits. This rugged volcanic island in the eastern Caribbean is cloaked in rainforest, riven by hundreds of rivers, and crowned by the world's second-largest boiling lake. With around 67,000 people, including the Caribbean's last surviving Indigenous Kalinago community, Dominica trades the package-resort model for waterfalls, hot springs, hiking trails, and one of the least developed, most pristine landscapes in the region.
Steep, forested volcanic peaks dominate, rising to Morne Diablotins at 1,447 meters, with active geothermal features in Morne Trois Pitons National Park, a UNESCO site that holds the Boiling Lake and fumaroles of the Valley of Desolation. Rivers and waterfalls abound, and the coast plunges quickly to deep water rich in whales. The wet tropical climate feeds the rainforest but leaves the island acutely exposed to hurricanes.
Contested by France and Britain and named by Columbus for the Sunday of his 1493 sighting, Dominica became independent in 1978. Agriculture, especially bananas, long anchored the economy, now supplemented by ecotourism and a citizenship-by-investment program. Rebuilding after the devastation of Hurricane Maria in 2017 and an ambition to become the world's first climate-resilient nation define its present.