Joaquín Antonio Balaguer Ricardo (September 1, 1906 – July 14, 2002) was the President of the Dominican Republic from 1960 to 1962, from 1966 to 1978, and again from 1986 to 1996.

Balaguer was born in Villa Bisonó (also known as Navarrete), Santiago Province in the northwestern corner of the Dominican Republic. His father was Joaquín Balaguer Lespier, a Puerto Rican of Catalan ancestry, and his mother was Carmen Celia Ricardo, daughter of Manuel de Jesus Ricardo and Rosa Amelia Heureaux. He was the only son in a family of several daughters.

From a very early age, Balaguer felt an attraction to literature, composing verses that were published in local magazines even when he was very young. He became involved in politics due to the American military occupation (1916–24). After graduating from school, Balaguer earned a law degree from the University of Santo Domingo and studied for a brief period at the University of Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne. As a youth, Balaguer wrote of the awe with which he was struck by his father's fellow countryman, the Harvard graduate and political leader from Puerto Rico, Pedro Albizu. Despite the profound differences regarding their ethical and world visions, Albizu's fiery and charismatic rhetoric captured Balaguer's imagination and his recollection of this occasion was a harbinger of his passion for politics and intellectual debate.

Balaguer (Catalan pronunciation: [bəɫəˈɣe], locally: [balaˈɣe]) is the capital of the comarca of Noguera, in the province of Lleida, Catalonia, Spain. It is located by the river Segre, a tributary to the Ebre.

Balaguer was conquered from the Moors by Ermengol VI of Urgell in 1106; he made it his new capital, and it remained so for subsequent counts of Urgell.

The town has a Gothic bridge, the "Pont de Sant Miquel," over the Segre river. This bridge was destroyed during the Spanish Civil War in the battle of "Cap de Pont" (bridgehead battle in 1938) and rebuilt after the war.

Another Gothic building is the Santa Maria Church, in the heights above the city, in line with a quite finely conserved wall dating to the 15th century AD.

The historic town is on the right bank of the Segre but, following the Spanish Civil War, construction began on a modern bridge, which initiated development of a modern extension of the town on the left bank.

General Franco's forces first entered Catalonia from Aragon in 1938 through Balaguer's bridgehead.