Hato Mayor Province

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**Hato Mayor Province**
Location
Hato Mayor in the Dominican Republic
Information
Country	Dominican Republic
Capital city	Hato Mayor del Rey
Establishment date	1984
Area - Total - % of country - Ranked	1,329.29 km² 2.7% 15
Population - Total (2002) - Density	87,631 (26) 65.9 inhab/km² (24)
Time zone	UTC-4
ISO 3166-2:	DO-30
Politics and administration
Members in Congress	1 Senator 2 Deputies
Municipalities Municipal Districts	3 4
Provinces of the Dominican Republic

Hato Mayor is a Dominican province; it is located in the eastern part of the country. Its name comes from the name of its capital city, Hato Mayor del Rey (in English: the largest cattle farm of the King.

It is one of the last provinces created in the Dominican Republic; it was made a province on 3 December 1984. The province's territory was part of the El Seibo province.

1 Location
2 History
3 Municipalities
4 Population
5 Geography
6 Economy
7 References

[change] Location

Hato Mayor is bordered to the northwest by the province of Samaná, to the west by Monte Plata and to the south by the San Pedro de Macorís province. The Samaná Bay is to the north of the province.

[change] History

Some native groups lived close to the coast, in caves in Los Haitises region.^[1] There were other groups, mainly Taínos, living inland but, in general, the population was low.

When the Spanish people came to this region, they found that there were many savannas with good grasses for food for cattle (cows), horses and sheep. And they made nine hatos. "Hato" is a word from southern Spain that means a large farm for raising cattle (a ranch); it is a common word in the Dominican Republic. One of those "hatos" was Hato Mayor del Rey, made in the name of King Charles I of Spain (Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor) but given as a Mayorazgo (a family property) to Francisco Dávila as the manager and the property was called sometimes "Hato Mayor de Dávila".

Because there were many French people and from other countries trying to live in the Samaná region, the colonial government founded the city of Sabana de la Mar in 1760 and brought people from the Canary Islands to live here.

The region was part of the old El Seibo until the new province of Hato Mayor was created in 1984.

[change] Municipalities

Hato Mayor has a total area of 1,329.29 km².^[2] It has 2.7% of the area of the Dominican Republic and it is ranked as the 15th (out of 31 plus the National District) largest province.

There are 3 municipalities and 4 municipal districts in the province.

The municipalities are:

Hato Mayor del Seibo, head municipality of the province
Sabana de la Mar
El Valle

The municipal districts are:

[change] Population

In 2002 (last national census), there were 87,631 people living in the Hato Mayor province, and 58,769 (67.06%) living in towns and cities. The population density was 66 persons/km².^[3]

[change] Geography

The territory of the province covers across four geographical regions.^[4] From north to south, these regions are:

Llanos Costeros de Sabana de la Mar y de Miches (English: Coastal Plains of Sabana de la Mar and Miches). These are small plains close to the Samaná Bay coast. The municipalities of Sabana de la Mar and El Valle are in this region.
Cordillera Oriental (English: Eastern mountain range), a short mountain range with low mountains. Another name for these mountains is Sierra del Seibo (English: El Seibo mountain range). On the southern side of this range, there is a region of low hills where is Hato Mayor del Rey, the capital of the province.
Llano Costero del Caribe (in English, "Caribbean Coastal Plain"), a large plain in southeastern Dominican Republic. Most of the province is in this region.
Los Haitises, in the northwest. It is part of a national park. It is a region with many low hills of limestone; the trade winds (winds from the northeast) bring a lot of water that falls in this region.

Rivers with their sources on the northern side of the Cordillera Oriental are short and flow into the Samaná Bay. The longest here is the River Yabón (44 km long) with its mouth west of the city of Sabana de la Mar.

Those rivers that flow to the south of the Cordillera Oriental and into the Caribbean Sea are longer. The most important rivers are, from east to west:

Maguá. It is a tributary of the Higuamo river; the city of Hato Mayor del Rey is near this river.
Higuamo.
Casuí. It is the main tributary of the Higuamo river.

[change] Economy

The main economic activity of the province is farming; the main products are cacao (in the Cordillera Oriental), flowers and oil palm around El Valle, and sugar cane south of Hato Mayor.

Because there are many savannas with grasses around Hato Mayor del Rey and to the south of it, cattle raising is a very important activity in the province; the dairy industry is important, with a large amount of cheese produced in the province.

Fishing is important in Sabana de la Mar and other towns around the Samaná Bay.

[change] References

↑ Veloz Maggiolo, Marcio (1972). Arqueología Prehistórica de Santo Domingo (in Spanish). Singapur: McGraw-Hill Far Eastern Publishers.
↑ Listado de Códigos de Provincias, Municipio y Distritos Municipales, Oficina Nacional de Estadistica
↑ Censo 2002 de Población y Vivienda, Oficina Nacional de Estadistica
↑ De la Fuente, Santiago (1976). Geografía Dominicana (in Spanish). Santo Domingo: Editora Colegial Quisqueyana.