Haiti " class="IPA">/?he?·ti?/ or pronounced /ha?·?ji?·ti?/; French Ha?ti pronounced [a·i·ti]; Haitian Creole: Ayiti), officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Creole- and French-speaking Caribbean nation. Along with the Dominican Republic, it occupies the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago. Ayiti was the indigenous Ta?no or Amerindian name for the island. The country's highest point is Pic la Selle, at 2,680 metres . The total area of Haiti is 27,750 square kilometres and its capital is Port-au-Prince.
Haiti's regional, historical, and ethnolinguistic position is unique for several reasons. It was the first post-colonial independent black-led nation in the world, as well as being the only nation whose independence was gained as part of a successful slave rebellion. Haiti was the first in Latin America to gain its sovereignty and is also the region's only independent Francophone nation; the other French-speaking Latin American countries are all overseas departments of France.
Derivation of the name of the country
The name Haiti comes from the Ta?no word Ayt?, which means "Mountainous Land" and referred to the entire island later called Hispaniola. The French staked their claim on the entire island based on settlement of Tortuga and Gon?ve islands by French pirates in the 16th century. France officially incorporated the colony in the early 1600s. In 1697, with the signing of the Treaty of Ryswick with Spain, the French took the western third of the island, naming their colony Saint-Domingue. The Spanish kept control of Santo Domingo, the eastern two-thirds of the island. Following the revolution and Saint-Domingue's declaration of independence from France on 1 January 1804, leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines, of African descent, restored the original Ta?no name of Haiti as an ode of honor to the Amerindian predecessors and as a demonstration of defiance against France.jj
History
Main article: History of Haiti
See also: Politics of Haiti, Elections in Haiti, National Assembly of Haiti, President of Haiti, 2004 Haitian rebellion, and United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti
The Ta?no
The island of Hispaniola, of which Haiti occupies the western third, was originally inhabited by the Ta?no Arawaks, a seafaring branch of the South American Arawaks
