People of the Dominican Republic

Dominicans
Dominicanos
Total population
11 million
Diaspora 2.9 million
Regions with significant populations
 Dominican Republic
8,562,541 (Last census)
 United States2,082,857 (2018)[1]
 Spain158,393 (2015 census)[2]
 Puerto Rico68,000 (2010)[3]
 Italy43,000 (2017)[4]
 Chile17,959[5](2019)
 Venezuela14,743 (2015)[6]
 Argentina14,248 (by birth, 2023)[1] 40,000 (by ancestry, 2013)[2]
 Switzerland11,154[7]
 Germany11,091
 United Kingdom10,000
 Netherlands8,688 (2015)[6]
 Panama8,095 (2015)[6]
 Curacao7,000
 Aruba5,000
 U.S. Virgin Islands5,442
 Sint Maarten4,000
 France3,843
 Brazil3,370
 Belgium3,000
 Austria2,942[8]
 Mexico2,849
 United Arab Emirates2,000 to 3,000
 Turks and Caicos Islands2,000
 British Virgin Islands2,000
 Antigua and Barbuda2,000
 Haiti2,000
 Uruguay2,000
 Costa Rica1 475
 Colombia410
 Norway856
 Sweden741
 Denmark187
 Australia187
Languages
Dominican Spanish
Religion
Predominantly Roman Catholic;
Protestant

Dominicans (Spanish: Dominicanos) are inhabitants or citizens of the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is a multi-ethnic country in the Caribbean basin which is home to people of many different racial, ethnic, national and cultural backgrounds which has often become a great pride for many Dominicans.

The people and the race

It is estimated that some 894,000 enslaved Africans were brought to Dominican Republic between 1717 and 1870 (and more before 1717). The slaves came from various West African regions, but the majority came from primarily the Congo region (present-day Angola, Congo, Gabon, and Cameroon) and the gold coast/Guinean (present-day Ghana and Guinea).

In addition, many immigrants arrived from other places around the world. After the last smuggled slave ship that arrived in 1898, many Chinese people came to the island due to the Chinese Revolution, along with the Arabs of North Africa (Morocco or Algeria) and Indians. Immigration from Europe, most notably Spaniards, Italians and Germans occurred during the later parts of the nineteenth century into the beginning of the twentieth century, mostly settling in Santo Domingo and in rural areas in the Cibao valley alike. During World War II, the Dominican Republic became the only nation to take in Jewish refugees by orders from then president Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. Nearly 800 German and Austrian Jews settled in the town of Sosua, Puerto Plata.

Today, much of the contemporary Dominican population is largely Black and Mulatto. The Dominican Republic itself is 45% Mulatto, 40% Black, and 15% White. Studies have indicated that up to 15% of all Dominicans carry maternal Taino-Arawak lineage, figures which are higher in rural areas. Other studies often indicate that the average Dominican is 60% African , 35% European (Mostly Spanish) and 5% Taino-Arawak, but these figures also vary by region as the purest Blacks is lives mostly in the Coastal lowland regions of the country.

References

  1. US Census Bureau. "Hispanic or Latino Origin by Specific Origin".
  2. "El Nuevo Diario - Los dominicanos en el exterior".[permanent dead link]
  3. "Dominican Immigrants in Puerto Rico". Archived from the original on 2020-02-12. Retrieved 2018-05-09.
  4. "Dominican Immigrants in the United States". 2018-04-09.
  5. "Inmigrantes en Chile llegan a 1.251.225 personas y venezolanos superan a peruanos por primera vez".
  6. 6.0 6.1 6.2 The Dominican Republic’s migration landscape
  7. "República Dominicana - Emigrantes totales 2017".
  8. AUSTRIA, STATISTIK. "Bevölkerungsstruktur". www.statistik.at.