La Visite National Park (french: Parc National La Visite) is one of the two largest

national park A national park is a nature park, natural park in use for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state dec ...

s of the

Republic of Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and so ...

. La Visite is a part of the Massif de la Selle mountain range. Its highest peak is 2275 meters in elevation. The park covers approximately 11,419 hectares of land with 1897 hectares above 2000 meters in elevation, and consists mainly of pine forest,

grasslands A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes, like clover, and other herbs. Grasslands occur natural ...

, and some montane

broadleaf forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

at an altitude above . The Haitian government established the La Visite National Park in 1983. The capital,

Port-au-Prince Port-au-Prince ( , ; ht, Pòtoprens ) is the capital and most populous city of Haiti. The city's population was estimated at 987,311 in 2015 with the metropolitan area estimated at a population of 2,618,894. The metropolitan area is define ...

, is only 22 kilometers north from the park. The northern boundary of La Visite National Park is the east-west running escarpment of the

Massif de la Selle In geology, a massif ( or ) is a section of a planet's crust that is demarcated by faults or flexures. In the movement of the crust, a massif tends to retain its internal structure while being displaced as a whole. The term also refers to a ...

Forest on plateau of Morne d'Enfer in La Visite National Park

Vegetation

The park's vegetation is broadleaf forest, grasslands and pine trees. The

Hispaniolan Pine ''Pinus occidentalis'', also known as the Hispaniolan pine or Hispaniola pine, (or in Spanish: pino criollo ) is a pine tree endemic to the island of Hispaniola (split between the Dominican Republic and Haiti). Ecology It is the eponymous spe ...

(''Pinus occidentalis'') is the most widespread tree in the park. Other type of forests that cover the park include karst broadleaf and wet broadleaf montane.

Avifauna

The park offers excellent opportunities for

birdwatching Birdwatching, or birding, is the observing of birds, either as a recreational activity or as a form of citizen science. A birdwatcher may observe by using their naked eye, by using a visual enhancement device like binoculars or a telescope, b ...

. The park is home to over 80 species of birds. A number of threatened species, including some

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to the island of

Hispaniola Hispaniola (, also ; es, La Española; Latin and french: Hispaniola; ht, Ispayola; tnq, Ayiti or Quisqueya) is an island in the Caribbean that is part of the Greater Antilles. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and th ...

, can be seen in the park.

Vegetation

Avifauna

References

See also