Sabaneta, Dominican Republic

San Ignacio de Sabaneta is a city and municipality in northwestern Dominican Republic. It is the main city of the Santiago Rodríguez province. It is usually called only Sabaneta or Santiago Rodríguez.

History
The town was founded in 1844 by Santiago Rodríguez and others in a small savanna (Sabaneta means a "small savanna") north of the Cordillera Central mountain range. In 1854,  the town was elevated to the category Military Post and in 1858 it became a municipality of the Santiago province.

San Ignacio de Sabaneta was the centre of the fight against the Spanish soldiers during the first period of the Restoration War (1863-1865).

When in 1879 Monte Cristi became a province, San Ignacio de Sabaneta was made a municipality of that new province. When the new province of Santiago Rodríguez was created in 1948, San Ignacio de Sabaneta was made the head municipality of the province.

Population
The city had, in , a total population of 34,540: 17,935 men and 16,605 women. The urban population was  of the total population.

Geography
San Ignacio de Sabaneta is on the northern side of the Cordillera Central ("Central mountain range") and has a total area of , about  of the total area of the province of Santiago Rodríguez. The city is an elevation of , and at  to the northwest of Santo Domingo.

It does not have any municipal district (a municipal district is a subdivision of a municipality).

The municipality of San Ignacio de Sabaneta has the Monte Cristi province to the north, the municipality of Monción to the northwest, the Santiago province to the west, the San Juan province to the southeast, the Elías Piña province to the south and the municipality of Villa Los Almácigos and the Dajabón province to the west.

Climate
San Ignacio de Sabaneta has a tropical wet and dry/savanna climate (Köppen-Geiger classification: Aw) with a pronounced dry season in winter.

The average amount of rainfall for the year in the city is . The month with the most precipitation on average is May 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  and the second is December with .

San Ignacio de Sabaneta is in a warm 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 .

Economy
The main economic activity of the municipality is farming: tobacco and cattle raising for milk.

References

Category:Settlements in the Dominican Republic
Category:1844 establishments in the Dominican Republic