The Dominican Republic is situated on the eastern part of the second-largest island in the Greater Antilles, Hispaniola. It shares the island roughly at a 2:1 ratio with Haiti. The country's capital and greatest metropolitan area, Santo Domingo, is located on the southern coast.



There are many small offshore islands and cays that are part of the Dominican territory. The two largest islands near shore are Saona in the southeast and Beata in the southwest.

The country's mainland has four important mountain ranges. The most northerly is the Cordillera Septentrional, which extends from the northwestern coastal town of Monte Cristi, near the Haitian border, to the Samaná Peninsula in the east, running parallel to the Atlantic coast. The highest range in the Dominican Republic — indeed, in the whole of the West Indies — is the Cordillera Central. It gradually bends southwards and finishes near the town of Azua de Compostela on the Caribbean coast.

The country is a tropical, maritime nation. Wet season is from May to November. The main annual temperature ranges from 21 °C in the mountainous regions to 25 °C on the plains and the coast. Nonetheless, the highest mountaintops are covered in pine forests and have temperatures that can go several degrees below freezing during winter nights.