Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"The mountainous Dominican Republic has a larger share of Hispaniola than Haiti (Fig. 2-19) in terms of territory (64 percent of the island), but at 10.6 million the Dominican Republic’s population ranks just behind that of Haiti. “The Dominican,” too, has a wide range of natural environments but also a far more robust resource base than its neighbor to the west. Nickel, gold, and silver have long been exported along with sugar, tobacco, coffee, and cocoa, but tourism is the leading industry. Yet the Dominican Republic’s economic performance since 2000 has been erratic and today remains below its potential. However, compared to near-destitute, low-income Haiti, the DR still ranks two developmental categories higher as an upper-middle-income country (see Fig. G-11)." Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts, 17th Edition, p. 103]