San Francisco de Macorís

**San Francisco de Macorís** is a city of the Dominican Republic, capital of Duarte Province. This city has had a relevant role in Dominican history, being one of the most active cities in the country's economic and social sphere. It was a railway terminal and is currently the commercial center of the northeast area. The industrial activity revolves around the transformation of local products such as cocoa, coffee, fruits, corn, rice, cattle and beeswax.

## San Francisco de Macorís

### Region

Duarte Province
Cibao NE

## About

San Francisco de Macorís is the head municipality of the Duarte province , and it is also the sixth most populated city in the Dominican Republic. It is located in the northeast of the island, in the eastern part of the Cibao valley.

Its name comes from the fusion of its patron San Francisco de Asis and the name that the place had when it was Macorix indigenous territory.

It has four municipal districts: Cenoví, Jaya, La Peña and President Don Antonio Guzmán Fernández.

San Francisco de Macorís was founded in 1778 with the name of Rincón de San Francisco. From its beginnings to the present, this city has been very important in the historical, political and economic processes of the country.

It was part of the La Vega province until 1885 when it became a municipality of the Espaillat province . With the creation of the Duarte province (1896), San Francisco de Macorís became its main municipality.

San Francisco de Macorís is the main center of commerce and services in the northeast region. Its most important economic activity is agriculture, and its most important products are rice, cocoa, coffee and bananas. It also benefits from raising cattle for milk production, and remittances from the Francomacorisanos who emigrated to the United States in the 1980s and 1990s.

## History

Upon the arrival of the Spanish in 1492, the island was divided into five chiefdoms, one of them was the chiefdom of Maguá, which was fundamentally the Cibao and had Guarionex as Chief Cacique, where a Taíno state resided with centralist and patriarchal characters. The entire northeast region of the country was part of the Maguá chiefdom and the Ciguayos or Macorijes that populated those jurisdictions of the current municipality of San Francisco de Macorís, made up a kind of chieftain, which in turn was ruled by Mayobanex.

The region was originally inhabited by the Ciguayos or Macorijes Indians, from where it later took its name.

Ramón Alberto Ferreras -El Chino-, after analyzing various historians concludes: "Macorix was not only an aboriginal social conglomerate or an oriental river, but also a language, a tree and a proper name", for its part the name of San Francisco It is attributed to Fray Juan Borgoñón of the Franciscan order, who had spread through the inland lands, in order to continue the work of meeting the spiritual needs of the population and settled in these regions, from here the origin can be inferred of the name San Francisco de Macorís.

The first city founded in the vicinity of San Francisco de Macorís was Concepción de la Vega, or *Vega Vieja*, in 1497. After La Vega, Cotuí was established in 1505, in a place rich in gold. For centuries, everything that today is San Francisco de Macorís and the Duarte Province was the rural periphery of La Vega and Cotuí respectively.

It was not until the Treaty of Aranjuez in 1777, when the border limits were redefined, since since 1630, the island was kept in a constant political upheaval, and it was this treaty that apparently put an end to the struggle. From then on, Spain promoted a population policy from the Central Cibao to the border with the purpose of strengthening territorial integrity, and many of the cities that had been officially destroyed in the Osorio Devastations of 1605 to 1606, were reestablished, and others were elevated in category from villa to city.

The name of San Francisco de Macorís comes from a fusion of the name of “the Franciscan order” (a religious organization from Spain that came to this territory during colonization) and the name of the indigenous territory, which is Macorix.

At that time, eight stakes or boundaries were set to define the boundaries, these margins were revised and reestablished more solidly later in 1890 and 1928 respectively.

### Other historical events

In 1795, the Basel treaty was signed in which Spain ceded the entire territory of the Spanish island to France. France took possession of the Spanish part in 1801, and it was under French management that a new political division of the island was conceived and the city of San Francisco de Macorís was assigned the category of parish. It was assumed that from that moment the council or city council is established, although we know only minutes of the resolutions of the council from 1811.

## Geography

San Francisco de Macorís is located at 19.2899° N, 70.2615° W. According to the ONE, this municipality has a total land area of 759.5 square kilometers (293.24 square miles). It is bordered on the north by the Espaillat Province town of Gaspar Hernández, on the northeast and east by the María Trinidad Sánchez Province towns of Rio San Juan, Nagua, and El Factor, on the southeast by the towns of Castillo, Pimentel, and Las Guáranas, on the south by the Sánchez Ramírez town of Fantino, on the southwest by the city of La Vega, and on the west by the Hermanas Mirabal towns of Villa Riva and Tenares.

The relief of the province of Duarte ranges from 17 meters to 942 meters above sea level, reaching its maximum elevation in the Loma Quita Espuela Scientific Reserve. There are two major geological regions: to the north, the Northern Cordillera and to the south, the Vega Real Valley and the rough topography of the Yuna River Delta.

San Francisco de Macorís has a sub-tropical climate, the warmest months are June, July and August where the temperature has reached 40C and the coolest months are December, January and February with temperatures ranging between 16C and 25C .

## Points of interest

City Hall Palace: It was built in 1945, which preserves on its facade the seal with the T in the center that was common to all public palaces built during the mandate of the tyrant Rafael Leonidas Trujillo .

Parque Duarte : One of the most visited places in the city has several green areas, a roundabout with beautiful paintings made by Franco-Corisano artists, and the monument to Juan Pablo Duarte .

Julián Javier Stadium : This sports space is well appreciated by the residents of the city, in honor of the former Dominican Major League Baseball player and native of San Francisco de Macorís. The stadium has a capacity for 12,000 people, and is the headquarters of the Gigantes del Cibao.

Cathedral of Santa Ana : A mixture of Gothic and modern architecture is the seat of the Diocese of San Francisco de Macoris.

Club Esperanza: A place with a lot of history, it was installed in 1884 by the Esperanza Macorisana society whose objective was to spread knowledge through the donation of books for a library and a night school and other acts of charity.

### Night life

San Francisco de Macorís, has one of the most vibrant nightlife in the country, in the city it is constant in the creation of new establishments for entertainment and leisure. Several restaurants and bars located in strategic points of the urban area of ​​the municipality, provide recreation and fun to attract crowds of the inhabitants of the city and the tourists it welcomes, making it an area of ​​active nightlife, considered by many people to be one of the best in the country and one of the most active nationally.

Among these we can highlight: Roof Club, Avalon Discotec, Bravo Liquor Store, La Rondita, CUE Lounge Restaurant, Blue Bar, New Parisian Bistro, D'Moya Restaurant, Maikitos, Catalina Restaurant, Buffalo Steak House, El Dorado Restaurant, Tu Quipe, Palacio del Cine, Sushi Bali, among others.