Capital: Port-au-Prince
Population: 9,648,924
Adult literacy rate: 55% (male); 51% (female)
Infant mortality rate: 77 per 1,000 births
Life expectancy: 30 (male); 30 (female)
Currency: Gourde
Information from CultureGrams World Edition
CultureGrams World Edition
Central Intelligence Agency
2011 March - Michel Martelly wins presidential elections, according to provisional results.
2011 January - Presidential election run-off vote scheduled to be held on 16 January is postponed because of row over who should be on ballot.
Former president Jean-Claude Duvalier returns from exile, faces corruption and human rights abuse charges.
2010 December - Announcement of inconclusive provisional results of presidential election triggers violent protests.
2010 November - Presidential and parliamentary elections.
2010 October-December - Cholera outbreak claims over 2,500 lives and triggers violent protests.
2010 October - Run-up to presidential, parliamentary polls due on 28 November. Concern over exclusion of popular candidates.
2010 July - Popular anger grows over slow pace of reconstruction six months after quake.
2010 March - International donors pledge $5.3 billion for post-quake reconstruction at a donor conference at UN headquarters.
2010 January - Up to 300,000 people are killed when a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hits the capital Port-au-Prince and its wider region - the worst in Haiti in 200 years.
US takes control of the main airport to ensure orderly arrival of aid flights.
2009 October-November - Jean-Max Bellerive becomes prime minister after the Senate passes censure motion against his predecessor, Michelle Pierre-Louis.
2009 July - World Bank and International Monetary Fund cancel $1.2bn of Haiti's debt - 80% of the total - after judging it to have fulfilled economic reform and poverty reduction conditions.
2009 May - Former US President Bill Clinton appointed UN special envoy to Haiti.
2008 November - A school in Port-au-Prince collapses with around 500 pupils and teachers inside. The authorities blame poor construction methods.
2008 September - Michele Pierre-Louis succeeds Jacques-Edouard Alexis as prime minister.
2008 August/September - Nearly 800 people are killed and hundreds are left injured as Haiti is hit by a series of devastating storms and hurricanes.