The purpose of this study was to analyze the occurrence of isolated cleft lip (CL), cleft lip with cleft palate (CL+CP) and isolated cleft palate (CP) and their distribution according to sex and laterality in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, located in the Caribbean Archipelago. The sample consisted of 439 hospital records (204 males and 235 females) of patients attending a children's public hospital in Santo Domingo over the period of May 1973 to December 1976. Of all facial clefts, the highest percentage (36.4%) was presented by CL, followed by CP (32.1%) and CL+CP (31.4%). Of all facial clefts, males presented the highest percentage (53.5%). For both sexes, there was an equal number of cases with (17.54%) but more males had CL+CP (0.20 > P > 0.10) and more females presented CP (P < 0.001). The left-sided defects were almost twice as common as the right-sided defects. The ratio of unilateral clefts-to-bilateral clefts was 5.4:1.