Santo Domingo travel guide — Santo Domingo tourism and travel information

Santo Domingo travel guide

about Santo Domingo

Santo Domingo, population 2,061,200 (2003), is the capital of the Dominican Republic. The city is located on the Caribbean Sea, at the mouth of the Ozama River. It is the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the Western Hemisphere, and was the first seat of Spanish colonial rule in the New World.

The city was founded between the years 1496 and 1498, as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, by Bartolomeo Columbus (Bartolomé Colón), brother of Christopher Columbus, on the eastern bank of the Ozama River, and extended to the western bank in 1502 by the governor Friar Nicolás de Ovando. The city served as a model for other colonial cities of the New World. In 1508, Ferdinand II of Aragon gave the city the coat of arms with the emblem of "First City of the Indies."

Inside the colonial city, the first citadel (Fortaleza Ozama), the first hospital (hospital de San Nicolás de Bari), the first cathedral (Primada de América), and the first monastery (Monasterio de San Francisco) in the Western Hemisphere were built.

In 1538, construction began on the oldest university in the the New World. It was named Santo Tomás de Aquino, in honor of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and still survives as the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (UASD).

A tomb in the cathedral was reputed to be the final resting place of Christopher Columbus, but the remains (the authenticity of which is disputed, with Spain also claiming to have a set of Columbus's bones) were moved to the Faro A Colón (Columbus Lighthouse) in 1990.

The city was sacked by Sir Francis Drake in 1586, and was almost completely destroyed by a hurricane in 1930. It was rebuilt and renamed Ciudad Trujillo, after dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, but the original name was restored almost immediately after his assassination in 1961.

Near cities to Santo Domingo

• San Cristobal travel guide 24 km
• San Pedro de Macoris travel guide 63 km
• Azua travel guide 88 km
• La Romana travel guide 99 km
• La Vega travel guide 110 km
• Barahona travel guide 130 km
• Santiago travel guide 140 km
• Puerto Plata travel guide 170 km
• Port travel guide 260 km
• Aguadilla travel guide 290 km

Near webcams to Santo Domingo

• Santo Domingo - Boca Chica webcam 32 km
• Aruba webcam 660 km
• Saint Barthelemy webcam 750 km
• Roseau webcam 970 km
• St Pierre webcam 1 000 km
• Martinik - Schoelcher webcam 1 000 km
• Fort de France webcam 1 000 km
• Fort de France webcam 1 000 km
• Isla Margarita webcam 1 100 km
• Grenada - St. George webcam 1 100 km

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Santo Domingo travel services

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Santo Domingo travel books

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Santo Domingo maps and atlases

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