31 things about Santo Domingo that you didn't know

31 facts about one of the largest cosmopolitian cities in the Caribbean: Santo Domingo

1. Completed in 1992, in time for the 500th anniversary of the Discovery of America, Santo Domingo’s Columbus Lighthouse is a museum, monument and mausoleum housing the remains of Christopher Columbus.

2. Santo Domingo is one of Latin America’s most economically developed cities with more than three million residing within its metropolitan area.

3. Santo Domingo’s Museo de las Casas Reales was built in 1511 to house the administrative offices of the Spanish colonies in the Americas.

4. Avenida George Washington runs along the Caribbean Sea and includes its own Washington Monument-like Obelisk. However, the El Obelisco), was built by dictator Rafael Trujillo in 1936 to commemorate the renaming of the city to Cuidad Trujillo.

5. Going into commercial service on January 30, 2009, Metro de Santo Domingo is the most extensive metro system in the insular Caribbean and Central America region by length and number of stations. Operating mostly underground, 61.3 million passengers rode the system in 2014.

6. The National Pantheon was completed in 1746 as a Jesuit church by Spaniard Geronimo Quezada y Garcon. Today, it is the final resting place of the Dominican Republic’s most honored citizens.

7. Recently, $30 million has been invested in streetscape improvements intended to beautify and “right-size” streets to improve pedestrian safety.

8. Santo Domingo’s Barrio Chino is one of only three Chinatowns in the Caribbean.