World Country Dominican Republic

About the world country Dominican Republic, its location, size, population, and who is in power.

NATIONS OF THE WORLD

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Location: Eastern part of the island of Hispaniola, in the Caribbean Sea between Cuba and Puerto Rico. Size: 18,816 sq. mi. (48,734 sq. km.).

Population: 5,906,000.

Who Really Rules: In 1978 Antonio Guzman defeated military-backed incumbent Joaquin Balaguer in the first honest presidential elections in the Dominican Republic since 1962. Guzman was the candidate for the Revolutionary Dominican party, a social democratic party with labor, peasant, middle-class, and elite constituencies that has moved to the right since being overthrown by the military in 1963.

The American conglomerate Gulf & Western is the Dominican Republic's largest foreign investor, private landowner, and employer. It controls 30% of the nation's sugar crop and most of the tourist industry. In 1980 Guzman negotiated a compromise settlement to a festering dispute with Gulf & Western, in which the company agreed to fund a nonprofit social-services foundation as the country's share of 1975 sugar-trading profits.