The Republic of Haiti, which occupies the westernmost third of the island of Hispaniola, shares that island with Santo Domingo. Haiti's approximately 28,750 square kilometres (ca. 10,700 square miles) is occupied by a population estimated at 3,400,000 (1959). One recent work suggests that the rural population alone in 1960 numbered 3,500,000.2 Much of the country's land is not arable now, and never was; more than two-thirds of the natural territory is mountainous, much of it unusable for agriculture. Deforestation and erosion have ruined large areas as well.