The mining record of the Dominican Republic
103 exploitation and 64 exploration concessions in force and 241 active mining claims held by 339 named titleholders in the Dirección General de Minería's cadastre, 6,163 claims traced through the 2017-2026 change log, and at least 80 mining deaths reported by the Dominican press.
The Dirección General de Minería serves its whole cadastre on an open map service: three metallic exploitation concessions (Cerro de Maimón, Falcondo's two nickel titles), a hundred non-metallic ones, the exploration titles and applications behind them, the mining claims (denuncias) and the fiscal and artisanal reserves, each with its titleholder, commodities, dates and area. The country's largest mine, Pueblo Viejo, is not in it. No Dominican mining dataset carries an RNC, the tax id, so holders are matched by name only. What no agency publishes is an inspection, a sanction or an accident record: the Ministerio de Energía y Minas posts a statement when miners die, names the dead and the municipality, and names no mine, because almost every Dominican mining death is in an informal amber or larimar working. The deaths here come from Spanish-language press, so every count is a floor.
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An exploitation concession (concesión de explotación) under Ley 146-71 is the right to mine; the cadastre's Otorgado and Vigente statuses mean it is in force.ⓘ
A denuncia minera is the mining claim that precedes a concession; the DGM keeps active, in-process and inactive claims as three layers.1,474 rights across the cadastre's fifteen layers, synced weekly from the DGM's ArcGIS map service (last refreshed Nov 2, 2026). 339 named titleholders, as the cadastre spells them.
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A distinct claim code in the DGM's 2017-2026 change log; each claim appears once per status change (Solicitud, then Otorgada).Every status change of a mining claim (denuncia) from 2018 to 2025, 428 titleholders, from the DGM's open-data CSV on datos.gob.do (last refreshed Nov 2, 2026). Claims only; concessions have no published change log.
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Counted from press headlines only; the Dominican Republic publishes no official per-fatality mining record, so the true number is undoubtedly higher.ⓘ
Events the headline itself places in an informal, artisanal or unlicensed working, most of them amber diggings in Hato Mayor and Santiago or larimar shafts in Barahona.Spanish-language headlines naming Dominican places from 2009 to Oct 23, 2026, read daily through Google News (last pull Nov 4, 2026) and classified by a language model against the headline's own words.
Barrick's Pueblo Viejo, the country's largest mine and one of the largest gold mines in the Americas, operates under a special lease of state mining rights (the former Rosario Dominicana holdings) rather than a concession, so the cadastre never lists it. A page built from the cadastre alone would omit it.
The Pueblo Viejo Dominicana Corporation page, with what the public record holds
The DGM inspects mines and MEM offers mine-safety advice as a public service, but neither publishes an inspection report, a sanction or an accident record; the Ministerio de Trabajo publishes no inspections; IDOPPRIL's work-accident register carries no employer or sector, so it cannot be filtered to mining; the Ministerio de Medio Ambiente's quarry sanctions exist only as press releases. One request under Ley 200-04 was filed with the DGM on September 17, 2026 for its mine-inspection reports and the accident notifications operators file with its Dirección de Seguridad y Salud Minera, 2015 to date, with mine, operator, date and outcome; the answer is awaited.
Filed September 17, 2026 by email to the DGM's access-to-information office, because the SAIP portal needs a Dominican cédula. Ticket number and answer date appear here when assigned.
“Muere electrocutado un obrero en la mina de la piedra Larimar en la costa de Bar”
“Una nueva muerte en las minas de larimar reaviva preocupación por la seguridad”
“Hombre muere electrocutado mientras trabajaba en un hoyo de larimar en Barahona”
“Fallece haitiano tras quedar atrapado en hoyo de extracción de larimar en Bahoruco”
“Haitiano muere al quedar atrapado en hoyo de extracción de larimar en Bahoruco”
“Sepultan a padre e hijo fallecidos en mina de Sosúa”
“Cuando el sustento se vuelve mortal: tres mineros muertos en menos de dos semanas”
“Denuncian que mina en Nigua donde murió trabajador operaba sin permisos”
“Eloy murió sin cumplir una repetida promesa a su esposa: dejar la mina cuando construyeran su casa”
“Muere Eloy Peña en colapso de mina en Nigua; su cuerpo fue recuperado tras 12 horas”
“Derrumbe en mina de Nigua deja un hombre fallecido”
“Hombre muere tras quedar sepultado en derrumbe en mina de San Cristóbal”
Every event is one press item read by a language model: the sentence shown is the headline's own words, the operator link exists only where the headline names a cadastre titleholder exactly, and most Dominican mining deaths are in informal amber or larimar workings that have no operator to name.
| Kind | Rights | Granted | Holders | Hectares | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exploitation concessions | 103 | 103 | 76 | 133,410 | |
| Exploration concessions | 64 | 64 | 34 | 171,182 | |
| Exploitation applications | 93 | 0 | 74 | 96,253 | |
| Exploration applications | 313 | 0 | 138 | 580,917 | |
| Active mining claims | 241 | 241 | 30 | 299,788 | |
| Mining claims in process | 91 | 0 | 12 | 112,891 | |
| Inactive exploitation rights | 25 | 0 | 24 | 45,450 | |
| Inactive exploration rights | 292 | 0 | 103 | 593,927 | |
| Inactive mining claims | 241 | 241 | 30 | 299,788 | |
| Fiscal mining reserves | 3 | 3 | 1 | 26,870 | |
| Artisanal mining reserves | 8 | 8 | 0 | 29,422 |
The fifteen layers of the DGM's map service grouped by what they hold: concessions in force, applications in review, active claims, inactive rights the cadastre keeps, and the two kinds of reserve. Granted counts Otorgado and Vigente.
| Commodity | Granted rights | Holders | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caliza | 196 | 73 | |
| Cobre | 83 | 22 | |
| Oro | 83 | 22 | |
| Plata | 83 | 22 | |
| Zinc | 80 | 20 | |
| Basalto | 57 | 7 | |
| Plomo | 57 | 11 | |
| Níquel | 34 | 4 | |
| Arcillas | 28 | 16 | |
| Carbonato de Calcio | 25 | 8 | |
| Mármol | 14 | 10 | |
| Caliza Coralina | 11 | 10 | |
| Sílice | 11 | 7 | |
| Yeso | 10 | 9 |
Each commodity the cadastre names on a concession or active claim in force, counted once per right; a right naming four commodities counts under each.
| Province | Claims | Granted | Holders | Deaths (floor) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LA ALTAGRACIA | 761 | 617 | 104 | 0 | |
| BARAHONA | 494 | 381 | 74 | 38 | |
| PEDERNALES | 418 | 370 | 37 | 0 | |
| MONTE PLATA | 405 | 293 | 71 | 0 | |
| SAMANÁ | 400 | 330 | 48 | 0 | |
| BAORUCO | 348 | 341 | 29 | 0 | |
| EL SEIBO | 336 | 242 | 59 | 0 | |
| HATO MAYOR | 282 | 161 | 25 | 4 | |
| PERAVIA | 210 | 139 | 38 | 0 | |
| PEDERNALES, BARAHONA | 198 | 155 | 23 | 0 | |
| SAN JUAN | 194 | 144 | 37 | 0 | |
| SANCHEZ RAMÍREZ | 146 | 124 | 50 | 0 | |
| ESPAILLAT | 117 | 80 | 19 | 0 | |
| SAN PEDRO DE MACORÍS | 116 | 82 | 47 | 0 | |
| LA VEGA | 112 | 105 | 23 | 1 | |
| MONSEÑOR NOUEL | 104 | 76 | 20 | 0 | |
| PUERTO PLATA | 101 | 80 | 30 | 1 | |
| HATO MAYOR, EL SEIBO | 89 | 68 | 25 | 0 | |
| MARÍA TRINIDAD SÁNCHEZ | 77 | 52 | 10 | 0 | |
| DAJABÓN | 73 | 48 | 10 | 0 |
From the claims change log, which is the only Dominican mining dataset that names a province: distinct claims and titleholders per province, and press deaths by the province in the headline. The cadastre itself carries no province.
Ranked by press events, granted rights, granted claims and all rights. Every titleholder has a page; this table shows the top of the ranking.
Dirección General de Minería (FlexiCadastre, ArcGIS REST), Catastro minero: concesiones, solicitudes, denuncias y reservas: 1,093 records, fetched Nov 2, 2026. →
Dirección General de Minería (datos.gob.do), Listado Histórico General de Derechos Mineros 2017-2026 (CSV): 11,103 records, fetched Nov 2, 2026. →
The cadastre is read from the DGM's anonymous ArcGIS REST services (fifteen leaf layers, one request each; the two group layers refuse queries); the claims history from the CSV on datos.gob.do; the press through Google News RSS.