Pedernales, Dominican Republic

Pedernales is a Dominican city and the capital of the Pedernales province, in the southwest of the country close to the border with Haiti.

Name
The name of "Pedernales" was given to the town when it was founded because that was the name of the river that now is the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Pedernales or silex ("flint") is the name of a hard mineral that is common in the region.

History
Before the conquest of the island by European people, some native groups lived around the place where the city of Pedernales is now. But soon those groups disappeared and very few people came to live here because it is a very dry region.

When the French colony of Saint-Domingue (present Haiti) was created, the Pedernales river was the southern border between that colony and the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo (present Dominican Republic). During those colonial times, some soldiers came here for some time but almost nobody lived here for a long time.

In 1927, the Dominican government brought farmers from other places of the country and made a town for them; the new town was given the name of Pedernales and its first administrator was Sócrates Nolasco who later became a well-known writer.

The town became, in 1938, a municipal district (an administrative division of a municipality in the Dominican Republic) of Enriquillo, province of Barahona.

When the Pedernales province was created in 1957, the town of Pedernales became the capital of the new province.

Population
The municipality had, in , a total population of 14,590: 7,473 men and 7,117 women. The urban population was  of the total population.

Geography
The only rivers in the municipality, and in the province, are the Pedernales river and its tributary Mulito.

Sierra de Bahoruco ("Bahoruco mountain range") is in the northern half of the municipality; its highest mountain, and the highest mountain of the province, is Loma del Toro,  above sea level, in the limits with the Independencia province.

The municipality has a total area of  and has only one municipal district (a subdivision of a municipality): José Francisco Peña Gómez.

The altitude of the city of Pedernales is  above sea level.

The municipality of Pedernales has the Independencia Province to the north, the Barahona Province to the east, the municipality of Oviedo to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the south and Haiti to the west. The city is at about  from the border with Haiti.

Climate
Pedernales has a subtropical steppe/low-latitude semi-arid hot climate (Köppen-Geiger classification: BSh).

The average amount of rainfall for the year in the city is . The month with the most precipitation on average is September with  of rainfall, followed by October with .

The driest season is winter. The month with the least rainfall on average is January with an average of  followed by February with an average of .

Pedernales is in a hot region; the average temperature for the year is . The warmest month, on average, is August with an average temperature of . The coolest month on average is January, with an average temperature of .

Administrative division
The municipality of Pedernales has only one municipal district:

Economy

Because Pedernales is on the border, the trade with Haiti is important. But the main economic activity is farming, mainly on the mountains, where coffee and beans are important products. Potato, cabbage and other vegetables are produced in the Sierra de Bahoruco.

Fishing is also an important activity in the province, mainly close to the Beata Island, where lobster, conch and several kind of fishes are caught.

Tourism is becoming an important economic activity because there are several beautiful beaches with white sand, like Cabo Rojo and Bahía de las Águilas. There are two of the largest national parks of the country: the Jaragua National Park and the Sierra de Bahoruco National Park.

Mining of limestone to send to other countries and for a cement factory is another important economic activity in the municipality.

References 

Settlements in the Dominican Republic
1927 establishments in North America
20th-century establishments in the Dominican Republic