Belladère

Belladère Beladè
Commune
Belladère Location in Haiti
Coordinates: 18°52′0″N 71°46′0″W
Country	Haiti
Department	Centre
Arrondissement	Lascahobas
Dominican cession to Haiti	1936
Elevation	400 m (1,300 ft)
Population  (7 August 2003)
• Total	60,239

Belladère (French pronunciation: [beladɛʁ]; Haitian Creole: Beladè, Spanish: Veladero) is a commune in the Lascahobas Arrondissement, inside the Centre department of Haiti. Its border crossing to the Dominican town Comendador is one of the four chief land crossings to the Dominican Republic.

It belonged to the Dominican Republic until 1936, when Dominican and Haitian leaders agreed to a boundary change in favor of Haiti, as the Haitian government commanded by Sténio Vincent wanted to move the border eastward while the Dominican regime under Rafael Trujillo saw the relinquish of the territory (despite some domestic opposition) as a de-Haitianization of the country, as that area had experienced a significant Haitian settlement in the previous decades, bolster by both Haiti's population explosion and scarcity of wastelands, with ethnic Dominicans becoming a minority in Belladère (then Veladero) and its surrounding areas.