Puerto Rico

About Puerto Rico Puerto Rico | Puerto Rico Geography & Sights

The official city of Puerto Rico, the Spanish Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, is the self-governing archipelago of the United States. It is the most eastern of the Greater Antilles and is located about 80 km eastern of the Dominican Republic, 65 km western of the Virgin Islands and 1600 km south-eastern of the state of Florida.

There are two small archipelagos off the eastern seaboard, Vieques and Culebra, administrative parts of Puerto Rico, as well as the island of Mona in the western part. Puerto Rico is a fifth the Dominican Republic, a third the Haiti and a little smaller than Jamaica. It' s approximately square and extends up to 111 km (179 km) from north to east and 39 km (63 km) from southwest.

The Puerto Ricans, or puerto orriqueños, have a mixed Spanish, US and Afro-Caribbean ancestry. In general, the islands socioeconomic situation is improved by Latin America defaults, in part due to its links with the United States (including the existence of US production sites and US Army sites in the Commonwealth). Despite political controversy, the overwhelming majority of Puerto Ricans have remained in favor of a lasting association with the United States, with a slightly larger number preferring the present ratio of the Commonwealth rather than the state.

Most of Puerto Rico is made up of hills and mountains, with almost a quarter of the length of the peninsula covering cliffs. Though Puerto Rico's terrestrial elevation is relatively low by continent comparison, the islands lies less than 100 nautical mile ( "160 km") southward of a deep valley in the earth's crust: an extended Atlantic U-boat facility known as Puerto Rico Trench, which drops to more than 5 nautical mile ( "8 km") below the ocean floor - the lowest point of the Atlantic - at a location northeastern of the Dominican Republic.

Strong tectonics that have produced these properties over the course of millennia still cause occasional seismic events in Puerto Rico. Cordillera Central, the island's highest chain of mountains, runs east-west and in many areas rises over 900 meters (3,000 feet); its northern slope is slightly soft, but rises steeply from the southern shore to the island's highest summits, towering above the Cerro de Punta, the island's highest point at about 1,338 meters.

On the northern coastline, where most of the population lives, there is a plain that is continous but small, and on the southern and western coastlines there are smaller strips that also cover heavily inhabited areas. Caguas Basin, in the valley of the Grande de Loíza River just outside San Juan, is the biggest of several mountain reservoirs that offer flat terrain for settlement and agronomy.

Not one of the Puerto Rico streams is large enough for shipping, but several northern streams are used for urban drinking waters, hydroelectric and hydroelectric power, and along the southern coastline watering is indispensable for farming. The rainfall of Puerto Rico is mainly on the northern mountainsides, so that most of the continual inland flows to the northern and western shores, among them the Grande de Loíza, Grande de Arecibo and Grande de Añasco which are all about 65 km long, and La Plata, which stretches over 75 km.

Rivers along the southern coastline are arid almost all year round and carry rainwater only. On the southern coastline the soil is somewhat rich, but all the arable land there is fertilised. The Puerto Rico has a temperate climatic zone with little seasonality, although it varies in accordance with altitude and wind load.

Northeastern Brazil wind brings strong rains to the northern coastline, while the southern coastline lies in the shelter. The annual rate of San Juan rains is about 60in (.525mm), while El Yunque Peak further eastward is 180in (4,570mm) and the southern shore of Papua New Guinea is only 36in (914mm).

Between June and November, the area is hit by occasional storms crossing the islands, such as a 1899 hurricane that struck some 3,000 Puerto Ricans; other disastrous but less deadly storms were in 1928, 1932, 1956, 1989, 1998 and 2017. Some of the northern side of the islands is covered by rain forests, while the dry southern side is dominated by thorny and bushes.

In the Sierra de Luquillo south-east of San Juan, the Caribbean forest is home to a variety of orchid and the small Puerto Ricans small Parrots, an endangered plant. More than 200 bird varieties exist in Puerto Rico, but the terrestrial animal population is mostly limited to non-toxic serpents, limos, mongooses and coquis (Eleutherodactylis portoricensis), a Mexican mongoose whose name is onomatoeic with its reputation ("Cokee!") and which has become a kind of nationally grown mask.