The first Black republic's capital — Iron Market, Gingerbread houses and the most resilient city in the Americas
Port-au-Prince is the capital of Haiti, the first Black republic in the world (independent 1804 after the only successful slave revolution in history) and the most culturally distinct country in the Caribbean. The Iron Market (Marché en Fer), a cast-iron structure originally designed for Cairo and redirected to Port-au-Prince in 1889, is the commercial and symbolic heart of the lower city. The Pétion-Ville neighbourhood on the hills above holds the restaurants, art galleries, and craft shops that represent Haiti's extraordinary visual art tradition — naïve painting, metalwork sculpture, papie…
Haiti became the first Black republic on 1 January 1804, after 13 years of revolution led by Toussaint Louverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and Henri Christophe defeated Napoleon's expedition (which had attempted to restore slavery after a 10-year abolition). France imposed a massive 'independence debt' of 150 million gold francs in 1825 (not fully paid until 1947), effectively indebting the country for a century of its independence. The 2010 earthquake killed 100,000–300,000 people and destroyed much of the capital's historic infrastructure; the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse…