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Haiti
The first Black republic, born of revolution
Haiti occupies the western third of Hispaniola and holds a singular place in world history as the first nation born of a successful slave revolution and the first independent Black republic. Around twelve million people live in a country of mountains, a rich Creole culture, and extraordinary resilience tested by poverty, dictatorship, earthquakes, and recurring political collapse. Its art, music, and Vodun traditions are vivid and globally influential, even as the modern state grapples with profound instability and humanitarian crisis.
Haiti is intensely mountainous, its very name from the Taino word for high ground, rising to Pic la Selle at 2,680 meters. Deforestation has stripped much of the land, worsening floods and landslides, while the country sits astride active fault lines that produced the catastrophic 2010 earthquake near Port-au-Prince. Fertile plains like the Artibonite grow rice, and a tropical climate exposes the coast to hurricanes.
Enslaved Africans threw off French rule to declare independence in 1804, but crippling reparations to France, foreign interventions, the Duvalier dictatorships, and natural disasters undercut development. Agriculture, light manufacturing, and remittances sustain the economy. Gang violence, the collapse of central authority, and an enormous diaspora define a present marked by acute crisis and the search for stability.