Monte Cristi is located in the Northwest corner of the Dominican Republic, approximately 170 miles from Santo Domingo and 5 hours by car. It is also accessible from Santiago (2 hours by car) and Puerto Plata (3 hours by car). It is about 15 miles from Manzanillo, a small port next to the Haitian border, and 25 miles from Dajabon, a major trading town on the border with Haiti.

There is a range of low mountains along the Monte Cristi coast, ending with El Morro, and a network of lagoons with seven offshore cays. The coastal platform is extensive and fed by one of the country's largest rivers, so that sea life is abundant, and the cays and lagoons are nesting areas for seasonally migrating birds.

Because much of the Province has been set aside as "protected areas", there are no major tourist projects or "planned communities", and there are still many of the Victorian style homes from a hundred years ago when the town was having a boom in "campeche" used for dye. At that time, it had the highest per capita income on the island, and the first automobile and first telephone, with its own trading agents in Europe. During this period of prosperity, the famous Clock Tower was purchased in Paris, as Monte Cristi's own "Eiffel Tower." It still tells time accurately twice every day.