Hispaniola is the second largest island in the Caribbean, located in the Greater Antilles. The island was the site of the first permanent European settlement in the Americas, with Christopher Columbus claiming the island for Spain in 1492. In 1659, France buccaneers from the island of Tortuga took over the western half of the island from the Spanish, and Spain recognized French control of that half under the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick. Since then, the island has been divided between the French-speaking Haiti in the west and the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic in the east, with a combined population of 21,396,000 people in 2014.
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Hispaniola in 1783