Haiti Geography & Climate

Haiti takes up the western third of Hispaniola, the second-largest island in the Caribbean, sharing it with the Dominican Republic along a 376-kilometre border. The Taíno called it Ayiti, mountainous land, and that is still the most accurate one-word description of it.

Four ranges and no plain worth the name

The Massif du Nord runs along the northern peninsula; the Montagnes Noires and the Chaîne des Matheux cross the middle; and in the south the Massif de la Hotte and the Massif de la Selle carry the country’s high ground, rising to 2,680 metres at Pic la Selle. Between them the Artibonite valley and the Plaine du Cul-de-Sac are the only substantial flat areas, and both are intensively farmed.

A coastline of bays

The two peninsulas enclose the Gulf of Gonâve, with the island of Gonâve in the middle of it. The result is a very long coastline for a small country, with sheltered water, coral, and beaches on the Côte des Arcadins, at Port-Salut in the south and along the northern shore east of Cap-Haïtien.

Deforestation, and what follows from it

Haiti has lost the great majority of its original tree cover, largely to charcoal production, and on slopes this steep the consequences are immediate: topsoil goes into the sea, rivers flood catastrophically, and a storm that would be survivable elsewhere causes landslides here. Reforestation programmes exist and are small relative to the problem.

On a fault line

The Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault runs along the southern peninsula. It produced the earthquake of January 2010, which killed well over a hundred thousand people, and another in August 2021 that killed more than two thousand.

Haiti is tropical, warm throughout the year, and far more varied than a country this size would suggest — because the mountains do the work that latitude does elsewhere.

The lowlands

Port-au-Prince and the coastal plains run between about 23 and 33°C year round, with high humidity. The hottest months are July and August; the most comfortable are December to February, when nights are genuinely pleasant.

The mountains

Above a thousand metres the picture changes completely. Kenscoff, Furcy and Seguin are cool enough for temperate crops, and night temperatures in the Massif de la Selle in January can approach freezing. This is why the elite built above the capital, and why anyone spending time in the highlands needs warm clothing that seems absurd at the airport.

Rainfall, and where it falls

Rain is unevenly distributed. The windward northern and southern slopes are wet, with over two thousand millimetres a year in places; the Gonâve basin and parts of the north-west sit in rain shadow and are semi-arid, with cactus and drought. Two rainy peaks, roughly April to June and August to November, bracket a drier midsummer.

Dust from the Sahara

Between June and August, plumes of Saharan dust cross the Atlantic and reach the Caribbean, hazing the sky, reddening sunsets and measurably worsening air quality for anyone with a respiratory condition. It also suppresses hurricane formation while it is present, which is the one useful thing about it.

Hurricanes

The season runs from June to November, with the greatest risk in September and October. The hazard here is disproportionate: cleared slopes shed water instead of absorbing it, so flooding and landslides follow rainfall that would be unremarkable on a forested island. Hurricane Matthew in 2016 destroyed much of the southern peninsula.