Port-au-Prince Arrondissement

Location in Haiti

Port-au-Prince (Haitian Creole: Pòtoprens) is an arrondissement in the Ouest Department of Haiti. It had 2,109,516 inhabitants at the 2003 Census. As of 2015, the population was 2,759,991, making it the most populous arrondissement in Haiti. The traditional seat is Port-au-Prince, the nation's capital and the largest city. The arrondissement has an area of 735.78 sq km (284.09 sq mi). Postal codes in the Port-au-Prince Arrondissement start with the number 61.

Neighboring Arrondissements

North⬆️ and East➡️	Croix-des-Bouquets Arrondissement
South⬇️	Jacmel Arrondissement
⬅️West	Léogâne Arrondissement
↖️Northwest	La Gonâve Arrondissement

Computer image of the Greater Port-au-Prince area

The arondissement consists of the following communes:

1. Port-au-Prince🏛️

2. Carrefour

3. Cité Soleil

4. Delmas

5. Gressier

6. Kenscoff

7. Pétion-Ville

8. Tabarre

Click here to view streets.

Meet the municipalities

Port-au-Prince🏛️ (1,234,742) This historic city is the capital, chief port, and commercial centre of the West Indian republic of Haiti. It is situated on a magnificent bay at the apex of the Gulf of Gonâve, which is protected from the open sea by the island of La Gonâve. The city replaced Cap-Haïtien as the capital of the old French colony Saint-Domingue in 1770 and was retained as the capital of the newly independent country in 1804. The local economy is largely supported by commerce, trade, and tourism. Other than its historical landmarks, the city is also renowned for its houses built in the "Gingerbread-style" Victorian architecture.

Carrefour (511,345) This suburban city, located immediately west of the capital, is the second-most populous city in the republic. It is mostly a bedroom community for those that work in the capital. The local economy is based largely on commerce and trade. With dozens of hotels, bars, and restaurants, tourism and entertainment plays a part although the city is mostly residential. The city is home to the Haitian Coast Guard and also hosts Lamentin lighthouse, the oldest lighthouse in the Caribbean.

Cité Soleil (265,072) Located at the head of Port-au-Prince Bay, this small municipality, an inner suburb of the capital, has been long famous for its status as an industrial city. This fame came with a price too, with the city quickly growing in size as people from across the country flocked here looking for work, resulting in having the nation's third-highest population density. The local economy is based largely on industry and trade. The city is home to Haiti's first housing project.

Delmas (395,260) A population of well over 300,000 living within an area of slightly over 28 sq.km (11 sq.miles) makes this industrial city the second-most densely populated city in Haiti. Once part of neighboring Port-au-Prince, this municipality became incorporated as a separate town in 1982 and in 1983, as a city. The ensuing years saw the city's population grow in leaps and bounds, aided by the extension of the Haitian capital and a burgeoning prominence of industry and commerce which took root in the city. Its geography is defined by its numbered streets, which mark the neighborhood boundaries and also house unique centers of business and entertainment.

Gressier (33,152) Located within the outer southwest reaches of the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area, the southern border of this small town - centered on a plateau between the highlands and the sea - is the Saddle Mountain Range (Massif de la Selle), whose ridge serves as the boundary between the departments of the West and the South. The local economy is based on agriculture (Millet, sugarcane, maize, coffee, manioc, yam and rice), livestock, and trade. Trade is one of the most important activities in the town. Known for its beautiful landscape, the town has a natural cave and also has the largest number of beaches in the region. Some areas of the town still have traces of the time of the Indians.

Kenscoff (52,232) This rural town is known for its cool climate, its vegetable production, its vivid nightlife, as well as its numerous luxury homes. During the hottest months, the town's altitude and close proximity to the capital accommodates a small number of urbanites for vacation. Located on the Pic de la Selle, it has the highest elevation of any municipality in the country. Part of the town is located within La Visite State Park. The local economy is based on agriculture, commerce, and trade.

Pétion-Ville (376,834) This suburban metropolitan city has been increasingly establishing itself as the largest shopping center in Haiti. Mostly residential, the recent years saw its transformation into the economic, tourist, commercial and cultural heart of the capital region. It has some of the most affluent neighborhoods in the region and is one of the richest areas of the country. The local economy is based on tourism, commerce, and trade. It is the nation's fourth most populated municipality and placed tenth on a list for the ten most beautiful communes of Haiti.

Tabarre (118,477)

The "Republic of Port-au-Prince"

Although the people of the mountainous interior compose the majority of Haitians, and in a sense, also constitute the essence of traditional Haitian Society, for most visitors the first (and often bewildering) experience will be the teeming streets, broken infrastructure, and run-down buildings of the country's capital city. Port-au-Prince was made the capital of French Saint Domingue in 1749 but only begin to grow in size towards the end of the 19th century (1800s).. It's position as the country's economic and political center was not finally consolidated until the 1915 to 1934 U.S. occupation. Since then, it has remained the focus of both political and commercial life, consuming so much of the country's attention and national budget (90 percent) that critics have portrayed it as a state within a state, and cynics have dubbed it, the "Republic of Port-au-Prince."

The "Republic of Port-au-Prince"

In the second half of the 20th century, the city's population exploded from 150,000 in 1954 to about two million in 2000 - as peasants poured in from the countryside in search of a living.This great influx of people has overwhelmed the basic infrastructure, and most inhabitants must endure poor sanitation and drainage, a decrepit water system, intermittent electricity, intense traffic congestion, and inadequate garbage collection. Unregulated house construction as engulfed the once sedate and well-ordered residential zones of the city's downtown area and new shantytowns have grown up on any available land. According to a 1998 World Bank study, two-thirds of the population of Port-au-Prince lives in slums.

The Port-au-Prince metro area at night, looking north

Today, the capital is a chaotic and anarchic sprawl, stretching from the coast up the mountainsides and out onto the Cul-de-Sac Plain. Over time slum developments have spilled out of the city center on to the coastal flats - to the south, the never-ending suburb of Carrefour, and to the north, the notoriously poor and destitute shantytown of Cité Soleil. The development of newer, much more up-market properties has been underway since the mid-1990s, and the slopes between the Delmas Road and the International Airport are home to huge construction sites.

High above the congestion and squalor of downtown Port-au-Prince is the mountainside suburb Pétion-ville where, amid cool and clean air, the elite families of Haiti's upper-class eat at French restaurants, shop at supermarkets stocked with imported goods, and generally live in a completely different world. Still further up the mountains, to Montagne Noire, La Boule and towards Kenscoff are the villas and surrounding gardens where this tiny Elite resides in secluded luxury behind high, barbed-wire fences, patrolled by private security guards.

Transportation

Port-au-Prince

The Port-au-Prince metropolitan area streets total over 600 km, of which about 200 km are paved. The streets are generally over 40 years old and in need of major repairs and rehabilitation. Street deterioration in the city has been accelerated by heavy rainfall and an inadequate drainage system. An IDB drainage project is improving the primary and secondary drainage networks. The proposed project would finance the maintenance of part of the tertiary drainage network (gutters). In addition, the city lacks proper passenger and freight terminals and sidewalks. Heavy congestion exists on all arterials, especially on the Carrefour Road, which provides the main exit to the south of the country. These latter needs would, however, be best addressed through a comprehensive urban transport project.

References

1. Haiti in focus - Charles Arthur: "The Republic of Port-au-Prince", p.11

2. Encyclopedia of Urban Cultures, Grolier, pp. 446-54 _{Michael VedrineMichael Vedrine}