Puerto Rico, officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is an archipelagic island U.S. territory comprised of the eponymous main island of Puerto Rico and 142 smaller islands, including Vieques, Culebra, and Mona. It is located between the Greater and Lesser Antilles in the northeastern Caribbean Sea, east of Hispaniola, west of Saint Thomas, north of Venezuela, and south of the Puerto Rico Trench. 177 km long and 65 km wide with a land area of 8,868 sq km, the main island is the 3rd largest in the U.S., 4th in the Caribbean, 29th in the Americas, and 81st in the world, making it the 174th largest country or dependency by surface area. With 3.2 million residents, it is the 2nd largest in the U.S., 4th in the Caribbean, 4th in the Americas, and 31st in the world, making it the 136th largest country or dependency by population.
Isla Culebra is an island, town and municipality of Puerto Rico, and together with Vieques, it is geographically part of the Spanish Virgin Islands. It is located approximately 17 miles (27 km) east of the Puerto Rican mainland, 12 miles (19 km) west of St. Thomas and 9 miles (14 km) north of Vieques. Culebra is spread over 5 barrios and Culebra Pueblo (Dewey), the main town and the administrative center of the island. Residents of the island are known as culebrenses. With a population of 1,792 as of the 2020 Census, it is Puerto Rico's least populous municipality.
Fajardo is a town and a municipality part of the San Juan-Caguas-Fajardo Combined Statistical Area in Puerto Rico.
Tourism in Puerto Rico attracts millions of visitors each year, with more than 5.1 million passengers arriving at the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in 2022, a 6.5% increase from 2021, the main point of arrival into the island of Puerto Rico. With a $8.9 billion revenue in 2022, tourism has been a very important source of revenue for Puerto Rico for a number of decades given its favorable warm climate, beach destinations and its diversity of natural wonders, cultural and historical sites, festivals, concerts and sporting events. As Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States, U.S. citizens do not need a passport to enter Puerto Rico, and the ease of travel attracts many tourists from the mainland U.S. each year.
Ángel Rivero Méndez was a Puerto Rican soldier, writer, journalist and a businessman. Rivero Méndez was a Captain in the Spanish Army during the Spanish–American War and is credited with ordering the first shot against the United States in Puerto Rico in said conflict. After the war, he became a US Citizen and upon his retirement, he wrote Crónica de la guerra hispano-americana en Puerto Rico, a chronicle of the Spanish-American War in Puerto Rico. He is also credited with inventing a carbonated drink called Kola Champagne which is still sold today.
The Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico is a private, nonprofit organization protecting natural areas; constituting conservation easements; restoring, rehabilitating and preserving historical structures; developing educational programs that foster the protection of natural areas; and directing a tree nursery program for native and endemic species, among others. The Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico has been accredited by The Land Trust Accreditation Commission. The Conservation Trust is also a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a global environmental organization with more than 1,200 public and private members from 160 countries.
Cape San Juan Light is a historic lighthouse located on the northeastern part of the highest point of Cape San Juan in Fajardo, Puerto Rico. The lighthouse was constructed in 1880 and was officially lit on May 2, 1882. The original illuminating apparatus, not changed until after 1898, had an 18-mile (29 km) range and displayed a fixed white light which every three minutes flashed red.
Isla Cabras Light, also known as Faro de Isla Cabras, was a lighthouse located on a rocky but flat islet with the same name, which sit just off the coast near Ceiba, Puerto Rico, toward the Vieques Passage.
The Battle of Fajardo was an engagement between the armed forces of the United States and Spain that occurred on the night of August 8–9, 1898 near the end of the Puerto Rican Campaign during the Spanish–American War.
Porta del Sol, or simply West Region, is a tourism region in western Puerto Rico. Porta del Sol was the first tourism region to be established by the Puerto Rico Tourism Company. It consists of 17 municipalities in the western area: Quebradillas, Isabela, San Sebastián, Moca, Aguadilla, Aguada, Rincón, Añasco, Mayagüez, Las Marías, Maricao, Hormigueros, San Germán, Sabana Grande, Guánica, Lajas and Cabo Rojo.
The Northeast Ecological Corridor Nature Reserve (NECNR) refers to an area designated as a protected Nature Reserve located on the northeast coast of Puerto Rico, between the municipalities of Luquillo and Fajardo. Specifically, the lands that comprise the NEC are located between Luquillo's town square to the west and Seven Seas Beach to the east, being delineated by PR Route # 3 to its south and the Atlantic Ocean to its north. It was decreed as a protected area by former Puerto Rico Governor Aníbal S. Acevedo-Vilá in April 2008, a decision reversed by Governor Luis G. Fortuño-Burset in October 2009, although he later passed a law in June 2012 re-designated as nature reserve two-thirds of its lands, after intense lobbying and public pressure. Later, in 2013, Governor Alejandro García-Padilla signed a law declaring all lands within the NEC a nature reserve. The area comprises 2,969.64 acres, which include such diverse habitats as forest, wetlands, beaches, coral communities, and a sporadically bioluminescent lagoon. The Corridor is also home to 866 species of flora and fauna, of which 54 are considered critical elements, meaning rare, threatened, endangered and endemic species classified by the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER), some even designated as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). These include, among others, federally endangered species such as the plain pigeon, the snowy plover, the Puerto Rican boa, the hawksbill sea turtle and the West Indian manatee. The beaches along the NEC, which are 8.74 kilometers long are important nesting grounds for the leatherback sea turtle, which starts its nesting season around April each year.
Beatriz Del Cueto López-Hidalgo is a Cuban-born architect specialising in conservation and architectural preservation. A resident of Puerto Rico since 1960, del Cueto is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and Henry Klumb Award winner in 2012.
Ensenada Honda, is an inlet on Puerto Rico's northeastern coast, in the municipality of Ceiba. Early indigenous resistance and the absence of gold kept cash-strapped colonial administrations mostly away from the region, which in time grew into a pirate and smuggling hub. In the 19th century, the bay's harbor facilitated the growth of the sugarcane industry, and in the 20th century, it hosted the Roosevelt Roads U.S. Naval Station. At present, a Reserve Component maintains a military presence in the area, but the inlet, along with a civilian airport, is the focus of local tourism and the fishing industry. As part of negotiations with the U.S. Navy, Ensenada Honda is also the object of preservation projects.
The Puerto Mosquito Bioluminescent Bay, or Mosquito Bio Bay, is a bay in the island of Vieques famous for its bioluminescence produced by the dinoflagellate Pyrodinium bahamense, which glows blue when agitated. This species of phytoplankton is found in bays in the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and The Bahamas.
Nature Reserve of Puerto Rico is a title and special designation given by the upper house of the Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico to specific natural areas or features throughout the territory. All nature reserves in Puerto Rico are protected by Puerto Rico Law #150, first approved on August 8, 1988, better known as the Puerto Rico Natural Heritage Program Act that seeks to protect the natural resources of the island for the purpose of natural preservation and tourism. These are managed by different agencies within the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources, public-private partnerships such as the Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico and its management unit Para la naturaleza, and other grassroots and community institutions and programs.
The La Cordillera Reef Nature Reserve, also known as the Reserva Natural Cayos de la Cordillera, is a nature reserve located 1.5 nautical miles off the coast of the barrio of Cabezas in the municipality of Fajardo in northeastern Puerto Rico. It consists of a small chain of cays, reefs, and islets, collectively known as La Cordillera or Cayos de la Cordillera. From west to east, the archipelago comprises Las Cucarachas islets, Los Farallones islets, Icacos cay, Ratones cay, Lobos cay, Palominos island, Palominitos island, La Blanquilla cay and islets, Diablo cay, Hermanos reefs, and Barriles reefs. The nature reserve covers about 18 nautical miles and almost 30,000 acres between cape Las Cabezas de San Juan in Cabezas, Fajardo and the Spanish virgin island of Culebra.
