Puerto Rico is found in the Caribbean region of North America. It is a popular travel destination for many across the globe. Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States. Puerto Ricans are American citizens by birth, and they can travel between the island, the US mainland, and other US territories without having to use a passport.
Puerto Rico comprises of a group of islands between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. This archipelago comprises of Puerto Rico the main island and several smaller islands which include Desecheo, Culebra, Vieques, Caja de Muertos, and Mona. Out of the five smaller islands, only two are inhabited throughout the year. There are smaller islets such as Monito which is located near Mona and La Isleta de San Juan and Isla de Cabras located in the San Juan Bay region. Puerto Rico’s nearest neighbors are the Dominican Republic to the west and the Virgin Islands to the east. This territory has a vastly contrasting topography. Close to 60% of Puerto Rico is made up of mountains, but there is a wide array of other relief features including deserts, rain forests, and rivers. The largest mountain standing at 4, 393 feet is the Cerro La Punta. The coastal lowlands make up the second main physiographic feature.

The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico as it is officially known covers an area of at least 5, 320 square miles with 3, 420 square miles being land. The main island runs for about 110 miles at its maximum stretch measured from east to west and a maximum north to south width of 40 miles. Compared to other islands of the Greater Antilles, Puerto Rico is the smallest. It is roughly 8% of the size of Cuba which is the largest in the region and about 80% of Jamaica. Puerto Rico is, however, bigger than the US states of Rhode Island and Delaware.
Puerto Rico Profile
The population of Puerto Rico was estimated to be 3, 474, 182 people as of July 2015. This statistic denoted a 6.75% decrease from the 2010 US census. The most populous cities in the territory include San Juan, which holds a population of about 395, 000 people, and Bayamon which has roughly 208, 000 people.
Puerto Rico was a Spanish colony between 1493 and 1898. It came under US control in 1898 following the Spanish-American war and the signing of the Treaty of Paris. In 1900 the island became an unincorporated territory of the US. Although Puerto Ricans are US citizens, they do not vote for the president and the vice president. They also do not pay taxes on income earned in the territory. It was not until 1952 that US citizens living in the Puerto Rican territory were allowed to elect a governor following the approval of a local constitution by Congress.1200–1492 Late Pre-Columbian Era 1492–1513 Age of Columbus 1513–1604 Conquistadors 1604–1821 NO MAPS FOR THIS PERIOD YET 1821–1842 Successors of New Spain 1842–1860 Manifest Destiny 1860–1865 American Civil War 1865–1898 Closing the Frontier 1898–1941 American Empire 1941–pres American Superpower
12 Oct 1492 Arrival of Columbus 26 Dec 1492 First contacts 6 Jan 1494 Columbus’ second voyage 4 Aug 1496 Colony of Santo Domingo 24 Jun 1497 John Cabot’s expeditions 23 Aug 1500 Fall of Columbus 7 Jan 1503 First Spanish attempts on the Mainland 8 Aug 1508 Colonization of Puerto Rico 15 Aug 1511 Spanish expansion in the Caribbean
North America Map Scavenger Hunt
In 1508 the Spanish explorer Ponce de León led an expedition from Santo Domingo to colonize the adjacent island of San Juan Bautista (Puerto Rico). Defeating indigenous resistance, the Spanish secured control over the island during the 1510s. Spain’s longest-lasting New World colony, Puerto Rico would remain under Spanish rule until the US occupied it in 1898.
In 1503 Nicolás de Ovando, the Spanish governor of Santo Domingo, advised Anacaona, Queen of Jaragua and widow of Taíno resistance leader Caonabó, that he would be visiting the town of Xaragua with his men to celebrate their good relations. During the celebrations, Spanish troops under Alonso de Ojeda suddenly seized the queen and burned or arrested her followers. Charged with conspiracy to rebel, Anacaona was hanged several months later.in wikipedia
The earliest depiction of the island of Bermuda was as “La Bermuda” in the map in Peter Martyr d’Anghiera’s Legatio Babylonica (1511). Close to the homeward course for Spanish ships returning from the New World, the island is generally held to have been discovered by Juan de Bermúdez in 1505, although his first confirmed presence on Bermuda was in 1515 and it is possible that the discovery was made on another of his many voyages to the New World.in wikipedia
Vintage Atlas Map Page
In 1507 the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller published the Universalis Cosmographia, a printed world map notable as being the first known map to use the name “America” and among the first to show the New World as clearly separate from Asia. Waldseemüller named America after Amerigo Vespucci, who had sighted the continent on Ojeda’s first expedition (1499)—and publicized it as a “New World”—even though Columbus had sighted it before him (in 1498). On the map, it was South America that was labeled America; North America was labeled Parias (an indigenous name), as the connection between the two landmasses was still uncertain.in wikipedia

In early 1508 Sebastián de Ocampo, a veteran of Colmbus’s first expedition, sailed from Santo Domingo with two caravels to explore Cuba. Arriving off Cuba’s northern shore, he traveled around the western point, Cape San Antonio, and back again via the south coast in an eight-month voyage. Ocampo’s circumnavigation confirmed that Cuba was an island and not a peninsula.in wikipedia
In 1508–09, sponsored by the English king Henry VII, John Cabot’s son Sebastian led one of the first expeditions to find a North-West passage to Asia via North America. Sailing past New Found Land to reach seas which were icy even in mid-July and where daylight lasted almost twenty-four hours, Cabot was eventually obliged to tack west-by-south and follow the coast to where it bent at about the same latitude as Gibraltar (possibly Chesapeake Bay). He then returned to England, only to discover that Henry VII had recently died and that his successor, Henry VIII, was uninterested in exploration.in wikipedia
Puerto Rico Maps & Facts
In 1508—incorrectly recorded in some sources as 1506—the seasoned explorers Vicente Yáñez Pinzón and Juan Díaz de Solís departed Spain in an attempt to follow up Columbus’ final voyage (1502–4) and find a passage through the New World to Asia. Traveling along the coasts of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Honduras, they may have reached as far as Yucatán but were unable to find a strait and returned home.in wikipedia
In 1508 the veteran adventurer Juan Ponce de León sailed from eastern Santo Domingo with a party to explore and colonize the adjacent island of San Juan Bautista (Puerto Rico). Establishing friendly relations with local chief Agüeybaná, Ponce de León founded the small fortified base of Caparra—the first Spanish settlement in Puerto Rico—inland from San Juan Bay in August. After further exploring the island and discovering sources of gold, Ponce de León was appointed governor of San Juan Bautista in 1509.in wikipedia

1500s 1508 American history August August 8 Bermuda Brazil Canada Canadian history Colombia Cuba England Haiti Honduras maps Mexican history Mexico Nicaragua Puerto Rico Spain Taino United Kingdom United States Venezuela YucatanEl Yunque National Forest is one of the most diverse in the U.S. national forest system with 183 animal species and 225 tree species.
North America, Map
The Taíno people have lived on the island of Puerto Rico since around 1200, and they still live there today. They called the island Borikén, which some historians think meant “island of crabs” or perhaps “land of the brave.”
When Christopher Columbus arrived in 1493, he made the island a colony of Spain by royal decree, and he called it San Juan Bautista in honor of John the Baptist, a Christian prophet. Then in 1508, the island’s first governor, Juan Ponce de León, changed the name to Puerto Rico, which means “rich port” in the Spanish language. That’s because gold and treasures from the Americas went through Puerto Rico before sailing to Europe. Around that time, slave traders forced African people to the island to build forts and work on farms.
Puerto Rico came under United States rule after Spain lost the Spanish-American War in 1898. Then in 1917, the island became a U.S. territory and Puerto Ricans were given U.S. citizenship when President Woodrow Wilson signed the Jones-Shafroth Act.

Puerto Rico Pictures And Facts
Although Puerto Rico is not a state, residents use the U.S. dollar and services like the U.S. Postal Service. U.S. citizens—including Puerto Ricans—don’t need passports to travel between Puerto Rico and the mainland United States.
It’s often called an island, but Puerto Rico is actually an archipelago, which is a string of islands. Only three are inhabited: the main island of Puerto Rico and two islands named Vieques (pronounced vee-EH-kez) and Culebra (koo-LAY-bra).
The land was created by a now-extinct volcano that began erupting about 190 million years ago. The main island has a mountain range, La Cordillera (koor-day-YEH-rah) Central, that runs east to west. At 4,
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