The total population of the Dominican Republic is approximately ten million. About half of Dominicans live in rural areas, and many of them are small landholders. However, rural citizens have migrated in large numbers to major cities such as Santo Domingo and Santiago de los Caballeros in the past decades; urban areas continue to grow rapidly.
Ethnicity
Most of the population of the Dominican Republic is of mixed African and European ancestry. There are significant distinct populations of people of African and European extraction, as well. Haitians form the largest foreign minority group.
Religion
The state religion of the Dominican Republic is Roman Catholicism, but there is no religious restriction.
Language
The official language is Spanish.
Quality of Life
The Dominican Republic's infant mortality rate is 27.94 deaths per 1,000 births, according to a recent estimate. The life expectancy at birth for the total population was estimated to be 73 years of age. The literacy rate of citizens over the age of 15 was estimated in the last year to be 87 percent.
About 2.3 percent of GDP is spent on education in this country; about 6.1 percent of GDP is spent on health expenditures. Access to water and sanitation is regarded as moderately good although there may be notable limits in certain rural areas.
Human Development
Another quality-of-life indicator that reflects on the Dominican Republic is the Human Development Index (HDI), compiled annually since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is a composite of several indicators, which measure a country's achievements in three main arenas of human development: longevity, knowledge and education, as well as economic standard of living. In a recent ranking of 169 countries, the HDI placed the Dominican Republic in the medium human development category at 88th place.
Note: Although the concept of human development is complicated and cannot be properly captured by values and indices, the HDI, which is calculated and updated annually, offers a wide-ranging assessment of human development in certain countries, not based solely upon traditional economic and financial indicators.