Ouest
Description
Ouest (English: West, Haitian Creole: Lwès) is one of the ten departments of Haiti. It is the jurisdictional seat of the national capital, the city of Port-au-Prince. It has an area of 4,982.56 square kilometres (1,923.78 sq mi) and a population of 4,029,705 (2015 Estimate). It borders the Dominican Republic to the east.
It is the second largest department in Haiti after Artibonite. Gonâve Island is also part of the Ouest department. The department's stretch of coastline lies entirely in the Gulf of Gonâve.
Arrondissements and communes
(with 2009 Population Estimates in parentheses)
- Arcahaie Arrondissement (180,564)
- Arcahaie (118,501)
- Cabaret (62,063)
- Croix-des-Bouquets Arrondissement (431,789)
- Cornillon (54,254)
- Croix-des-Bouquets (227,012)
- Fonds-Verettes (45,491)
- Ganthier (56,869)
- Thomazeau (48,163)
- La Gonâve Arrondissement (79,188)
- Anse-à-Galets (56,890)
- Pointe-à-Raquette (22,298)
- Léogâne Arrondissement (463,140)
- Grand-Goâve (124,135)
- Léogâne (181,709)
- Petit-Goâve (157,296)
- Port-au-Prince Arrondissement (2,509,939)
- Carrefour (465,019)
- Cité Soleil (241,055)
- Delmas (359,451)
- Gressier (33,152)
- Kenscoff (52,232)
- Pétionville (342,694)
- Tabarre (118,477)
- Port-au-Prince (897,859)
- × — The communes of Cité Soleil and Tabarre are newly constituted, and did not exist at the time of the 2003 Census
History
2010 7.0 Earthquake
On 12 January 2010, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck in the department, the largest in Haiti in two centuries. In the Port-au-Prince Arrondissement, many areas suffered damage. In the Léogâne Arrondissement, the city of Léogâne suffered 80-90% destruction. Other places in Léogâne were also affected.
