Provinces of the Dominican Republic

Buy data    Donate

Updates: 

FIPS PUB 10-4 Change Notice 13 was issued on 2008-02-04. The only change in the Dominican Republic is to the spelling of Bahoruco.

ISO 3166-2 has come out in a second edition, dated 2007-12-15. This contains ISO codes for the new provinces of San Jose de Ocoa and Santo Domingo. I've added them to the main table below.

With respect to telephone dialing, the Dominican Republic is in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP), which means that its international dialing code is 1, followed by the area code. The Dominican Republic originally was in area code 809, but in 2005 it was overlaid with area code 829.

FIPS Publication Change Notice No. 10, affecting FIPS PUB 10-4, was issued on 2006-03-23. It assigns new FIPS codes to the two new provinces, and changes the codes for the old province and district from which they were formed.

Update I-1 to ISO 3166-2 was published on June 21, 2000. All of the provinces were originally assigned two-letter codes by the ISO secretariat. Those have been replaced by two-digit codes taken from "Listado de Códigos por Provincias, Municipios y Distritos Municipales del País 1995" (List of Codes by Provinces, Municipalities and Municipal Districts of the Country 1995) from the Oficina Nacional de Estadística. This eliminates an error in ISO 3166-2, where the code EP was used for two provinces. Also, the update changed the spelling of one of the provinces' names from El Seibo to El Seybo.

Country overview: 

The Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. The boundary between these two countries has remained fairly stable throughout the 20th century. Unfortunately, the same can't be said about their system of government. The Dominican Republic was dominated by Rafael Trujillo from 1930 to 1961. He and his family attempted to impose their names on several geographical features.

Other names of country: 

1. Danish: Den Dominikanske Republik
2. Dutch: Dominicaanse Republiek
3. Finnish: Dominikaaninen tasavalta
4. French: République f dominicaine
5. German: Dominikanische Republik f
6. Icelandic: Dóminíska lýðveldið
7. Italian: Repubblica f Dominicana
8. Norwegian: Den dominikanske republikk (Bokmål), Den dominikanske republikken (Nynorsk)
9. Portuguese: República f Dominicana
10. Spanish: República f Dominicana
11. Swedish: Dominikanska republiken

Origin of name: 

from Santo Domingo, the capital, which was named by Columbus in 1496 in honor of his father's patron saint.

Primary subdivisions: 

The Dominican Republic is divided into 31 provinces and one district.

Postal codes: 

The Dominican Republic recently switched (2005) from four-digit to five-digit postal codes. In Distrito Nacional (10000-10699) and Santo Domingo (10700-11999), hundreds of codes have been assigned; in the rest of the provinces, the last three digits are always 000. The first digit determines a region, as defined by the Instituto Postal Dominicano: 1 = Distrito Nacional, 2 = Este, 3 = Norte, 4 = Cibao Central, 5 = Norcentral, 6 = Noroeste, 7 = El Valle, 8 = Enriquillo, 9 = Valdesia. The census report calls them regiones de desarrollo (development regions). It calls number 3 "Nordeste".

Further subdivisions:

See the Municipalities of the Dominican Republic page.

The provinces are subdivided into comunes (municipalities). There were 61 of them in 1935, rising to 97 in 1993. Municipalities are further subdivided into secciones (sections).

Territorial extent: 

1. Independencia contains most of Lago Enriquilla, including all of Isla Cabritos.
2. La Altagracia includes Isla Saona.
3. Pedernales includes Isla Beata and Cayo los Frailes.

Origins of names: 

1. Azua: native word for Spanish montuna, which can mean either mountainous or hard to tame
2. Bahoruco: Taino name for the Yaque del Sur River
3. Distrito Nacional: = national district
4. Duarte: named for Juan Pablo Duarte, 19th-century revolutionary
5. Elías Piña: named for Colonel Elías Piña, hero of the wars of independence
6. Espaillat: named for Ulises Francisco Espaillat (1823-1878), 19th-century author and governor
7. Hato Mayor: = greater cattle-raising district
8. La Altagracia: the brothers Alonso and Antonio de Trejo arrived from Spain in the early 16th century with a painting of Our Lady of La Altagracia. Miracles are attributed to it.
9. Monseñor Nouel: named for a president of the republic, Monseñor Dr. Adolfo Alejandro Nouel y Bobadilla
10. María Trinidad Sánchez: named for a female soldier in the wars of independence
11. Pedernales: = flints
12. Puerto Plata: = silver port
13. Sánchez Ramírez: named for Brigadier Juan Sánchez Ramírez, hero of the battle of Palo Incado (1808)
14. San Pedro de Macorís: macorís is a native word for "speaker of a foreign language"
15. Santiago Rodríguez: named for one of the founders of the city (founded in 1844)
16. Valverde: named for General José Desiderio Valverde, 19th-century governor

Change history: 

1. 1882-09-10: San Pedro de Macorís became distrito marítimo (maritime district, equivalent to province).
2. The provinces in 1935 were Azua, Barahona, Duarte, Espaillat, La Vega, Montecristi, Puerto Plata, Samaná, San Pedro de Macorís, Santiago, Santo Domingo (modern Distrito Nacional), Seibo (modern El Seibo), and Trujillo (modern San Cristóbal). The territory of the old province is usually larger than that of the modern province because of subsequent splitting. As a rule, the capital of the old province is the same as the capital of the modern province I have mentioned.
3. 1936: Name of national capital changed from Santo Domingo to Ciudad Trujillo, after the dictator Rafael Trujillo, who came to power in 1930. Name of Distrito Nacional changed to Distrito de Santo Domingo.
4. 1938-04-19: Benefactor province (modern San Juan) split from Azua; Libertador province (modern Dajabón) split from Montecristi; Monseñor de Meriño province split from Trujillo.
5. 1939: Monseñor de Meriño province split, part merged with Trujillo, and the rest merged with Distrito de Santo Domingo.
6. 1942: San Rafael province (modern Elías Piña) split from Benefactor.
7. 1943-03-10: Bahoruco province split from Barahona (or Azua?).
8. 1944: José Trujillo Valdez province split from Azua.
9. 1945: La Altagracia province (capital La Romana) split from Seibo.
10. 1948: Santiago Rodríguez province split from Montecristi, now spelled Monte Cristi.
11. 1959-01-01: Valverde province split from Santiago.
12. 1952: Independencia province split from Bahoruco; Salcedo province split from Espaillat; Sánchez Ramírez province split from Duarte.
13. 1957: Name of Distrito de Santo Domingo restored to Distrito Nacional.
14. 1958: Pedernales province split from Barahona.
15. 1961: Rafael Trujillo assassinated on 1961-05-30. Name of national capitol restored to Santo Domingo; name of Trujillo province changed to San Cristóbal; name of José Trujillo Valdez province changed to Peravia; name of Benefactor province changed to San Juan; name of Libertador province changed to Dajabón.
16. ~1963: María Trinidad Sánchez province (at first also known as Trinidad Sánchez Nagua province) split from Samaná.
17. 1965: Name of San Rafael province changed to La Estrelleta.
18. 1967-05-12: Name of capital of Valverde changed from Valverde to Mao.
19. ~1968: La Romana province split from La Altagracia.
20. 1972: Name of La Estrelleta province changed to Elías Piña; name of its capital changed back to Comendador.
21. ~1979: Name of capital of Santiago Rodríguez province changed from Santiago Rodríguez to Sabaneta (restoring the name previously changed in 1936).
22. ~1992: Hato Mayor province split from El Seibo (former FIPS code DR07); Monseñor Nouel province split from La Vega (DR13); Monte Plata province split from San Cristóbal (DR22).
23. 2000-06-21: ISO 3166-2 standard spelling of El Seibo changed to El Seybo. It appears to me that the two spellings are interchangeable in common use, but this may represent a change in the official government spelling.
24. 2001-10-16: Santo Domingo province split from Distrito Nacional (former HASC code DO.DN, FIPS code DR05).
25. 2002-01-01: San José de Ocoa province formed by taking the municipios of Rancho Arriba, Sabana Larga, and San José de Ocoa from Peravia (former codes DO.PR, DR17).

Other names of subdivisions: 

1. Bahoruco: Baoruco (variant)
2. Dajabón: Libertador (obsolete)
3. Distrito Nacional: Santo Domingo (obsolete)
4. Elías Piña: La Estrelleta, San Rafael (obsolete)
5. El Seybo: El Seibo (variant); Seibo (obsolete)
6. Hato Mayor: Hato Mayor del Rey (variant)
7. María Trinidad Sánchez: Trinidad Sánchez Nagua (obsolete)
8. Peravia: José Trujillo Valdez (obsolete)
9. San Cristóbal: Trujillo (obsolete)
10. San Juan: Benefactor (obsolete); San Juan de la Maguana (variant)

Population history:

The Dominican Republic has had eight modern censuses, starting with the census of 1920-12-24. Source for the censuses of 1935-1960 is the Encyclopædia Britannica World Atlas. Source for 1981 populations: Desarrollo Humano en la República Dominicana: El Estado de los Indicadores Relevantes . Source for 1993, 2003 populations: "Resultados Definitivos, VIII Censo Nacional de Población y Vivienda 2002, Vol I", downloaded from Oficina Nacional de Estadística .