The 2010 national census for the Dominican Republic showed some interesting figures. One thing that probably is no real surprise to anyone who has lived here for a while is the large number of people that are moving to the larger cites like Santo Domingo, and Santiago.

Over the last few years I have seen large numbers of teenagers moving to the tourist areas like Punta Cana, and Puerto Plato in search of work at the resorts. It seems to be the dream of most of the younger ones I meet in the compos (rural and farming areas) to move to the larger cities, quite often due to the need to be able to find ways to support their aging relatives.

The 2010 population of the Dominican Republic as counted by the census was 9,445,281 of these 4,706,243 (49.8%) were women and 4,739,038 (50.17%) were men.

The census also showed that 7,023,949 live in urban areas while only 2,421,332 live in rural areas. Not hard to believe with Santo Domingo alone reaching over 3.7 million.

If you are interested in checking out more of the statistic you can go to the official website www.one.gov.do/ (in Spanish)