Provinces of the Dominican Republic provinces and their capital cities. The population figures are from the 2014 population estimate. Provinces of the Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic is divided into thirty–one "provincias" (provinces; singular "provincia"), while the national capital, Santo Domingo, is contained within its own Distrito Nacional ("National District"; "D.N." on the map below). The division of the country into provinces is laid down in the constitution (Title I, Section II, Article 5) and enacted by law. The latter is currently Law 5220 on the Territorial Division of the Dominican Republic ("Ley No. 5220 sobre División Territorial de la República Dominicana"), issued 1959 and
Constitution of the Dominican Republic Constitution of the Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic has gone through 39 constitutions, more than any other country, since its independence in 1844. This statistic is a somewhat deceiving indicator of political stability, however, because of the Dominican practice of promulgating a new constitution whenever an amendment was ratified. Although technically different from each other in some particular provisions, most new constitutions contained in reality only minor modifications of those previously in effect. Sweeping constitutional innovations were actually relatively rare. The large number of constitutions does, however, reflect a basic lack of consensus on the rules that should govern the