Country	Republic of Haiti	Click on Map for Larger Image
Capital	Port-au-Prince
Total Area	10,714.33 sq mi 27,750.00 sq km (slightly smaller than Maryland)
Population	8,706,497
Population Growth Rate	2.453% (2007 est)
Languages	French (official), Haitian Creole (official), Spanish (non-official)
Literacy	61.0% total, 63.8% male, 58.3% female (2008 est.)
Religions	Roman Catholic 80%, Protestant 16% (Baptist 10%, Pentecostal 4%, Adventist 1%, other 1%), none 1%, other 3% note: roughly one-half of the population also practices Voodoo
Life Expectancy	55.35 male, 58.75 female (2007 est.)
Government Type	elected government
Currency	1 US dollar = approx. 40 gourdes (G)
GDP (per capita)	$1,300 (2008 est.)
Industry	sugar refining, flour milling, textiles, cement, tourism, light assembly industries based on imported parts
Agriculture	coffee, mangoes, sugarcane, rice, corn, sorghum; wood
Arable Land	20%
Natural Resources	bauxite, copper, calcium carbonate, gold, marble, hydropower

Haiti is the second oldest independent country in the Western Hemisphere and is the oldest black republic in the world. It was established in 1804 by the only successful country-wide slave rebellion in history. However, Haiti, even after independence from France, was ruled by a succession of dictators. From one of the richest agricultural lands in the Americas In colonial times, Haiti has become the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. It is unable to produce enough food to adequately feed its population, most of whom are moderately malnourished. Life expectancy is short and infant mortality is high, about 12% of children dying before their first birthday. One third of all children die before their 5th birthday.

The population of Haiti today is about 8,700,000 people. 75% of the population live in rural areas, concentrated on small family plots in the few areas suitable for agriculture. In these areas, the population density is very high, increasing the problems of disease exposure and spread. Although the official language is French, the principal spoken language is Creole, used by about 90% of the people. About 50% of the population is illiterate.

Over 80% of Haiti's people live in abject poverty. Haiti is one of the most impoverished nations in the Western Hemisphere. The unemployment rate is estimated to be around 60 percent; and the literacy rate is approximately 60 percent. Half the population of Haiti earns $60 or less per year. The total expenditure on health per person is $54 (compared to $4,499 in the USA and $483 in Mexico).

Less than 45 percent of all Haitians have access to potable water. The life expectancy rate in Haiti is only 56 years. Seventy-six percent of Haiti's children under the age of five are underweight, or suffer from stunted growth and 63 percent of Haitians are undernourished. Ninety percent of all HIV and AIDS infections in the Caribbean are in Haiti: over 300,000 infected people have been identified and deaths from HIV/AIDS have left 163,000 children orphaned. Tuberculosis remains a major cause of adult mortality; rates are thought to be the highest in the hemisphere. Cases of TB in Haiti are more than ten times as high as those in other Latin American countries. Haiti's infant mortality rate is staggering: 74 deaths per 1,000 live births and the maternal mortality rate is approximately 1400 deaths for every 100,000. Only 1 in every 10,000 Haitians has access to a physician.

The nation's capital, Port-Au-Prince, is the largest city and the commercial center of the country. It has an estimated population of 2,000,000 people. A large percentage of these people live in shacks and in extreme urban poverty. These parts of the cities have no sanitation or potable water and the residents of these neighborhoods have high rates of infection with tuberculosis and HIV. Other cities are Cap-Haitians (600,000) on the northern coast, Gonaives (34,000) on the east coast and Les Cayes (34,000) on the southern coast of the island.

Information from GlobalSecurity.org & World Atlas