province
A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...
of the
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a Maritime boundary, maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and ...
, also the name of its
capital city
A capital city, or just capital, is the municipality holding primary status in a country, state (polity), state, province, department (administrative division), department, or other administrative division, subnational division, usually as its ...
. The city is fairly active due to its proximity to the national capital of
Santo Domingo
Santo Domingo, formerly known as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city of the Dominican Republic and the List of metropolitan areas in the Caribbean, largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean by population. the Distrito Na ...
and also its role in the
sugar industry
The sugar industry subsumes the production, Sugar refinery, processing and marketing of sugars (mostly sucrose and fructose). Globally, about 80% of sugar is extracted from sugar cane, grown predominantly in the tropics, and 20% from sugar beet, ...
. The province is informally known as San Pedro, SPM or Serie 23 for the first two numbers of their Dominican identification or Cedula.
Citizens from San Pedro de Macorís are called ''petromacorisanos''. The culture of the province shares many similarities with those of the other eastern provinces. For example, during
carnival
Carnival (known as Shrovetide in certain localities) is a festive season that occurs at the close of the Christian pre-Lenten period, consisting of Quinquagesima or Shrove Sunday, Shrove Monday, and Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras.
Carnival typi ...
season, the ''diablos'' (devils) (Guloyas/ Buloyas) tend to wield ' (whips), which relates to the traditional cattle farming of the whole region.
Serie 23 is a mecca for all Dominican culture and was the home to the DR's most famous writer, Pedro Mir. In the past years the beautiful architecture of Serie 23 has been used as a backdrop for several Hollywood feature films, such as ''Miami Vice'', '' The Good Shepherd'' and ''Sugar''. It often stands in for
Havana
Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.
The province as of June 20, 2006, is divided into the following
municipalities
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality' ...
(''
municipio
A ' () or ' () is an administrative division in several Hispanophone and Lusophone nations, respectively. It is often translated as "municipality." It comes from ''mūnicipium'' (), meaning a township.
In English, a municipality often is define ...
San Pedro de Macorís
San Pedro de Macorís is a city and municipality (''municipio'') in the Dominican Republic. The capital of its eponymous province in the east region of the country, it is among the ten largest cities of the Dominican Republic. The city has approx ...
The following is a sortable table of the municipalities and municipal districts with population figures as of the 2012 census. Urban population are those living in the seats (''cabeceras'' literally heads) of municipalities or of municipal districts.
Rural
In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry are typically desc ...
population are those living in the
district
A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or county, counties, several municipality, municip ...
s (''Secciones'' literally sections) and
neighborhood
A neighbourhood (Commonwealth English) or neighborhood (American English) is a geographically localized community within a larger town, city, suburb or rural area, sometimes consisting of a single street and the buildings lining it. Neigh ...
s (''Parajes'' literally places) outside of them.
For comparison with the municipalities and municipal districts of other provinces see the
list of municipalities and municipal districts of the Dominican Republic
The municipalities of the Dominican Republic are, after the provinces, the second level of the political and administrative division of the Dominican Republic.
The division of provinces into municipalities (''municipios'') is established in the C ...
.
Economy
There are several ' (sugar mills or, literally, sugar engines) distributed in the province which handle the load of its large sugar cane plantations. This industry in turn allowed for San Pedro De Macorís to serve as the base of operations for two of the DR's three biggest rum distilleries. Bovine cattle is another important economic asset, as it is in all of the other eastern provinces thanks to the vast ''Llanura Oriental'' (Eastern Plain). San Pedro also hosts many hotel and tourism ventures, ranging from low-tier resorts to top tier exclusive Golf and Country Clubs.
Sports
The province enjoys a rarely disputed reputation as the capital of Dominican baseball, providing a relatively high number of professional
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...
Sammy Sosa
Samuel Peralta Sosa (; born November 12, 1968) is a Dominican-American former professional baseball right fielder. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for 18 seasons, primarily with the Chicago Cubs. After playing for the Texas Rangers and ...
being the most notable player from SPM in recent years (see a full list of Dominican players). Baseball players from this city often come from poor homes and use baseball as a way to earn money for their families. Many ball players from this city are major philanthropists as well.
See also
*
Cocolo
''Cocolo'' is a term used in the Hispanic Caribbean to refer to Afro-Caribbean migrant descendants. The term originated in the Dominican Republic and is historically used to refer to the Anglophone Caribbean immigrants and their descendants and ...
PDF
Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...