Santo Domingo

Santo Domingo, population 2,061,200 (2003), is the capital of the Dominican Republic. \nThe city is located on the Caribbean Sea, at the mouth of the Ozama River. Founded in 1496, it is arguably the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the Western Hemisphere. It was the first seat of Spanish colonial rule in the New World. The city was sacked by Sir Francis Drake in 1586, and was almost completely destroyed by a hurricane in 1930. It was rebuilt and renamed Ciudad Trujillo, after dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, but the original name was restored almost immediately after his assassination in 1961. The city's cathedral, begun in 1514, is the oldest in the Western Hemisphere. A tomb in the cathedral was reputed to be the final resting place of Christopher Columbus, but the remains (the authenticity of which is disputed, with Spain also claiming to have a set of Columbus's bones) were moved to the Columbus Memorial Lighthouse in 1990. The Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (UASD) is the oldest university in the new world 1538. \n\n