English: On January 19, 2016, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA�s Aqua satellite flew over the West Indies and captured this beautiful clear-sky image of the island of Hispaniola.

The second-largest island in the Caribbean, Hispaniola is home to two countries. The Dominican Republic lies in the eastern two-thirds of the island, and Haiti occupies the western third. The terrain is rugged, with five major mountain ranges that stretch across the island, interspersed with steep and typically fertile valleys. The arrangement, height and ruggedness of the terrain makes travel from south to north difficult.

The Dominican Republic is about twice the size of the state of New Hampshire, with 51.5% of the land used for agriculture, with just over 10% in permanent crops and almost 25% in permanent pasture. Forests cover about 40.8% of the Dominican Republic. Haiti is slightly smaller than the state of Maryland, with 66.4% of land in agricultural use. Permanent crops account for just over 10% of agricultural land, and permanent pasture about 17.7 %. In contrast to the Dominican Republic, Haiti�s land is only 3.6% forested.