Port-au-Prince City Map Poster

About Port-au-Prince

Port-au-Prince is noted for its vibrant culture, particularly its music and cuisine, as well as its notorious slums. The city has been both praised and cursed for this duality. Port-au-Prince's economy is focused primarily on finance, commerce, manufacturing goods such as clothing (clothing exports in 2008 were estimated at $284 million), soap products (soap exports in 2008 were estimated at $72 million), cement (cement exports in 2009 totaled US$111 million) and rum production; the country's main export partners are the United States ($1 billion annually) and France ($500–600 million annually). Its population of around one million people is roughly split between urban dwellers living in fairly decent conditions near the waterfront—in modern housing with running water—and an enormous homeless population living mostly on a hillside just above them that was severely deforested long ago to make room for shanty towns or "camps".