The country is a former colony of Spain. Spanish is still the official language. The population is approximately 8,500,000 people. Reading and writing is very important to the people 82 percent are literate. Baseball is the most popular team sport in the country.
Dominican boys begin playing it almost as soon as they can walk.
Two industries are the most profitable in the Dominican Republic. The first is tourism. A close second is the cane sugar growing, processing, and export business. The unit of money in the Domincan Republic is the peso. The peso is divided into 100 centavos.