The Republic of Haiti is a small, mountainous country on the western onethird of the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea. Haiti was originally the Arawak name for the island, meaning "mountainous land," Haiti's area is 27,560 square kilometers (10,641 square miles) Its population, estimated at 7,656,166 in July 2004, is the poorest in the Western Hemisphere and resides mostly in crowded rural villages and urban slums. Life expectancy is 49.7 years for men and 56.1 years for women, compared to the Latin American average of 69. The racial distribution is 94 percent black, 4 percent mulatto, and 1 percent each Middle Eastern and white. The official languages are Kreyol (Creole) and French, but only Kreyol is widely spoken.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas, and one of the few countries to have become poorer in the last decades of the twentieth century. The United Nations (UN) Conference on Trade and Development has labeled it...