Puerto Rico, officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a Caribbean island, Commonwealth, and unincorporated territory of the United States. It is located in the northeast Caribbean Sea, approximately 1,000 miles (1,600 km) southeast of Miami, Florida, between the Dominican Republic and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and includes the eponymous main island and several smaller islands, such as Mona, Culebra, and Vieques. With roughly 3.2 million residents, it is divided into 78 municipalities, of which the most populous is the capital municipality of San Juan. Spanish and English are the official languages of the executive branch of government, though Spanish predominates.
Puerto Ricans, most commonly known as Boricuas, and also referred to as Borinqueños,Borincanos, or Puertorros, are the people of Puerto Rico, the inhabitants, and citizens of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and their descendants, including those in mainland United States.
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, 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.
The municipalities of Puerto Rico are the second-level administrative divisions in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. There are 78 such administrative divisions covering all 78 incorporated towns and cities. Each municipality is led by a mayor and divided into barrios, third-level administrative divisions, though the latter are not vested with any political authority. Every municipality is governed as stated by the Autonomous Municipalities Act of 1991, which establishes that every municipality must have an elected strong mayor with a municipal legislature as the form of government. Each legislature must be unicameral, with the number of members related to adequate representation of the total population of the municipality. In contrast to other jurisdictions, both the mayors and the municipal legislators are elected on the same date and for the same term of four years in office.
Emmanuel Logroño, better known as Sunshine Logroño, is an American actor. Logroño has worked in Puerto Rican media for close to three decades.
Arroyo is a town and municipality located along the southern coast of Puerto Rico and bordered by the Caribbean Sea, east of the municipality of Guayama and northwest of the municipality of Patillas. Arroyo is spread over 5 barrios and Arroyo barrio-pueblo. It is part of the Guayama Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Barceloneta is a town and municipality in Puerto Rico located in the north region, bordering the Atlantic Ocean, north of Florida, east of Arecibo, and west of Manatí. Barceloneta is spread over 3 barrios and Barceloneta Pueblo. It is part of the San Juan-Caguas-Guaynabo Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Yauco is a town and municipality in southern Puerto Rico. Although the downtown is inland, the municipality stretches to a southern coast facing the Caribbean Sea. Yauco is located south of Maricao, Lares and Adjuntas; east of Sabana Grande and Guánica; and west of Guayanilla. The municipality consists of 20 barrios and Yauco Pueblo. It is both a principal town of the Yauco Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Ponce-Yauco-Coamo Combined Statistical Area.
Agüeybaná was the principal and most powerful cacique (chief) of the Taíno people in "Borikén" when the Spanish first arrived on the island on November 19, 1493.
Guayama, officially the Autonomous Municipality of Guayama, is a city and municipality on the Caribbean coast of Puerto Rico. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 36,614. It is the center of the Guayama metropolitan area with a population of 68,442 in 2020.
Luis Palés Matos was a Puerto Rican poet who is credited with creating the poetry genre known as Afro-Antillano. He is also credited with writing the screenplay for the "Romance Tropical", the first Puerto Rican film with sound.
The history of the Cinema industry in Puerto Rico predates Hollywood, being conceived after the first industries emerged in some locations of the United States, Switzerland, Denmark, Italy, France, Great Britain and Germany. During the US invasion of the island in 1898, American soldiers brought cameras to record what they saw. By 1912, Puerto Ricans would begin to produce their own films. After the early images recorded by the American soldiers in 1898, most of the films produced in the island were documentaries. It wasn't until 1912 that Rafael Colorado D'Assoy recorded the first non-documentary film titled Un drama en Puerto Rico. After that, Colorado and Antonio Capella Martínez created the Film Industrial Society of Puerto Rico in 1916, producing their first film titled Por la hembra y el gallo. Other film companies formed during the time were the Tropical Film Company (1917) and the Porto Rico Photoplays (1919). Puerto Rico was the second Latin American market to produce a sound film, filming Luis Pales Matos's script for Romance Tropical (1934). The film featured Jorge Rodríguez, Raquel and Ernestina Canino, Sixto Chevremont and Cándida de Lorenzo. In the late 1930s Rafael Cobián produced films starring Blanca de Castejón such as Mis dos amores and Los hijos mandan at Hollywood. In 1951, he would produce Mi doble with San Juan as its setting. Mapy and Fernando Cortés would also participate in the Hollywood industry, as well as throughout Latin America.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Puerto Rico:
The Jewish immigration to Puerto Rico began in the 15th century with the arrival of the anusim who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage. An open Jewish community did not flourish in the colony because Judaism was prohibited by the Spanish Inquisition. However, many migrated to mountainous parts of the island, far from the central power of San Juan, and continued to self-identify as Jews and practice Crypto-Judaism.
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.
José Gualberto Padilla, also known as El Caribe, was a physician, poet, journalist, politician, and advocate for Puerto Rico's independence. He suffered imprisonment and constant persecution by the Spanish Crown in Puerto Rico because his patriotic verses, social criticism and political ideals were considered a threat to Spanish Colonial rule of the island.
The barrios of Puerto Rico are the primary legal divisions of the seventy-eight municipalities of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico's 78 municipios are divided into geographical sections called barrios and, as of 2010, there were 902 of them. In the US Census a barrio sometimes includes a division called a comunidad or subbarrio. In Puerto Rico, barrios are composed of sectors. The types of sectors, (sectores) may vary, from normally sector to urbanización to reparto to barriada to residencial, among others.
While Spanish is the first official language of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, English is the second official language. English is taught in all Puerto Rican schools and is the primary language for all of the U.S. federal agencies in Puerto Rico as one of the two official languages of the Commonwealth, the other one being Spanish, which has been the predominant and primary language for the majority of Puerto Ricans as 94.3% of the entire population speak Spanish as their native language, along with 5.5% speaking English as their first language, and the remaining 0.2% speaking other languages as their primary. English was not declared as an official language alongside Spanish until 1902. Its status as an official language however was briefly removed in 1991 after a law was made recognizing Spanish as the sole official language, and after the U.S. Congress had attempted to make English the primary language in order for Puerto Rico to join the union as the 51st state, but was brought back as the second official language in 1993 and has remained the co-official language of the commonwealth since then.
Alberto González was a humorist and iconoclast; known for his biting political satire and popular comedy shows, he was a prolific writer, journalist, and scriptwriter during a career that spanned sixty years in show business. Alberto González was born in Guanabacoa, Cuba, in 1928.
Pueblo is a term primarily used in Puerto Rico to refer to the municipal district (barrio) that serves as the administrative, historic and cultural center of a municipality. The concept of pueblo is often used locally as analogous to the concept of downtown in U.S. cities. Pueblos are officially called barrio-pueblo by the United States Census since 1990.
