Current Time in Pétionville, Haiti

Pétionville is a commune in the hills above Port au Prince, the capital of Haiti, occupying the slopes of the Massif de la Selle at around four hundred metres above sea level. The altitude gives it noticeably cooler and fresher air than the crowded plain below, and on clear days the view stretches across the bay towards the mountains of the Gonâve peninsula. The tropical climate is tempered by the elevation, with warm days, comfortable nights and a rainy season concentrated in spring and autumn.

Several hundred thousand people live in the commune, which forms part of a metropolitan area of well over two million. Pétionville has traditionally been the wealthiest district of the capital region and the location of embassies, hotels, banks, galleries and the head offices of Haitian businesses, though like the rest of the metropolitan area it also contains densely populated neighbourhoods on the steeper slopes where conditions are far more difficult.

The town was founded in 1831 and named after Alexandre Pétion, the general and statesman who became the first president of the southern Haitian republic and who is remembered for supporting Simón Bolívar in the struggle for South American independence. Established as a hill retreat from the heat and disease of the port, it developed through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries into a residential suburb of villas, gardens and gingerbread houses, the distinctive Haitian style of decorated timber architecture.

Pétionville is the centre of Haiti's celebrated art world. Haitian painting, with its brilliant colour and visionary imagery, achieved international recognition in the twentieth century, and the galleries of Pétionville, together with private collections and the museum founded by the Nader family, hold major works by the country's leading artists. Sculpture in metal, papier mâché masks and vodou flags sewn with sequins are also sold and exhibited here, and craft workshops in the surrounding hills continue these traditions.

Place Saint Pierre, with its church and shaded benches, is the heart of the town, and around it are restaurants, music venues and the markets that supply the district. Haitian cuisine, with its griot, rice and beans, pikliz and locally grown coffee, is well represented, and the hills above produce some of the finest coffee in the Caribbean.

The mountain roads climb from Pétionville to Kenscoff and Furcy, cool villages of pine forest and vegetable gardens where flowers grow in the open air and the temperature can fall close to freezing, and to the Boutilliers viewpoint above the capital. These excursions have long been favourites for residents escaping the heat.

The commune was badly affected by the earthquake of January 2010, and in recent years the metropolitan area has faced serious insecurity and political instability, which have restricted normal life and travel considerably.

Transport is by tap tap buses, minibuses and taxis on steep and congested roads, with Toussaint Louverture International Airport serving the capital.

Several universities and schools operate in and around the commune.

Pétionville is important as the commercial and cultural heart of upper Port au Prince and as the centre of Haitian art.