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Portal:Puerto Rico

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The Puerto Rico Portal

Location of Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico (Spanish for 'rich port'; abbreviated PR), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a self-governing Caribbean archipelago and island organized as an unincorporated territory of the United States under the designation of commonwealth. Located about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) southeast of Miami, Florida, between the Dominican Republic in the Greater Antilles and the U.S. Virgin Islands in the Lesser Antilles, it consists of the eponymous main island and numerous smaller islands, including Vieques, Culebra, and Mona. With approximately 3.2 million residents, it is divided into 78 municipalities, of which the most populous is the capital municipality of San Juan, followed by those within the San Juan metropolitan area. Spanish and English are the official languages of the government, though Spanish predominates.

Puerto Rico was settled by a succession of Amerindian peoples beginning 2,000 to 4,000 years ago; these included the Ortoiroid, Saladoid, and Taíno. It was claimed by Spain following the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1493 and subsequently colonized by Juan Ponce de León in 1508. Puerto Rico was contested by other European powers into the 18th century but remained a Spanish possession for the next 400 years. The decline of the indigenous population, followed by an influx of Spanish settlers, primarily from the Canary Islands and Andalusia, and African slaves vastly changed the cultural and demographic landscape of the archipelago. Within the Spanish Empire, Puerto Rico played a secondary but strategically significant role compared to larger and wealthier colonies like Peru and New Spain. By the late 19th century, a distinct Puerto Rican identity began to emerge, centered around a fusion of European, African, and indigenous elements. In 1898, following the Spanish–American War, Puerto Rico was acquired by the United States.

Puerto Ricans have been U.S. citizens since 1917 and can move freely between the archipelago and the mainland. However, residents of Puerto Rico are disenfranchised from federal elections and generally do not pay federal income tax. In common with four other territories, Puerto Rico sends a nonvoting representative to the U.S. Congress, called a Resident Commissioner, and participates in presidential primaries; as it is not a state, Puerto Rico does not have a vote in the U.S. Congress, which oversees it under the Puerto Rico Federal Relations Act of 1950. Congress approved a territorial constitution in 1952, allowing residents of the archipelago to elect a governor in addition to a senate and house of representatives. The political status of Puerto Rico is an ongoing debate.

Beginning in the mid-20th century, the U.S. government, together with the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company, launched a series of economic projects to develop Puerto Rico into an industrial high-income economy. It is classified by the International Monetary Fund as a developed jurisdiction with an advanced, high-income economy; it ranks 40th on the Human Development Index. The major sectors of Puerto Rico's economy are manufacturing, primarily pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, and electronics, followed by services, namely tourism and hospitality. (Full article...)

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Photo credit: User:Jmoliver

Many garitas 'sentry boxes', such as this one in Fort San Felipe del Morro, were constructed by the Spaniards to guard Old San Juan against enemy invaders. Long after their decommission, they now commonly used as the iconic representation of Puerto Rico's history and tourism.

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Abandoned Central Mercedita sugar refinery office building. Note the Snow White Sugar sign and decal on the left of the building facade.

Hacienda Mercedita was a 300-acre (120 ha) sugarcane plantation in Ponce, Puerto Rico, founded in 1861, by Juan Serrallés Colón. Today Hacienda Mercedita no longer grows sugarcane and its lands are instead used for growing mangoes, grasses, landscape plants and palms, coconut palms, bananas, and seeds.

The Hacienda was the administrative center of the large sugarcane mill called Central Mercedita as well as that of its cane sugar refinery plant which packaged the Snow White brand sugar at its nearby packaging plant. Hacienda Mercedita was also the site of origin of a rum production in 1865 that became the successful Destilería Serrallés rum distillery producing Don Q and other spirits. After operating continuously since 1949, Central Mercedita closed down in December 1994, and its sugar mill site is abandoned and in ruins. The Serrallés rum distillery, however, is an expanding and successful company still operating from the same original location, in barrio Vayas, southeast of the intersection of routes PR-10 and PR-52. Central Mercedita, where the local sugar cane was processed, is now owned by Puerto Rico's Autoridad de Tierras (English: Land Authority). Though Hacienda Mercedita was located in a different barrio, Sabanetas, its location was next to the rum distillery, the two being separated only by La Esperanza street (PR-5506). (Full article...)

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Kenneth Davison McClintock-Hernández (born January 19, 1957) is a politician who served as the twenty-second Secretary of State of Puerto Rico, one of the four longest serving in that post. McClintock served as co-chair of Hillary Clinton’s National Hispanic Leadership Council in 2008, he co-chaired her successful Puerto Rico primary campaign that year and served as the Thirteenth President of the Senate of Puerto Rico until December 31, 2008. He chaired Luis Fortuño’s Incoming Committee on Government Transition in 2008 and the Outgoing Committee on Government Transition in 2012, the only Puerto Rican to serve in both capacities. He was sworn into office as secretary of state on January 2, 2009, by Chief Justice Federico Hernández Denton, fulfilling the role of lieutenant governor (first-in-line of succession) in the islands. He was appointed by Governor Pedro Pierluisi as a member of the Civil Rights Commission (Puerto Rico) on February 8, 2024, a nomination pending Senate confirmation. (Full article...)

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Isabel González with her husband Juan Francisco Torres
  • ... that Antonia Novello, a native of Fajardo, Puerto Rico, was both the first female and the first Hispanic Surgeon General of the United States (1990-1993)?
  • ... that Juan Mari Brás was the first person to receive a Puerto Rican citizenship certificate from the Puerto Rico State Department since the establishment of the Commonwealth in 1952, an action which has been since questioned by the United States Department of State?
  • ... that Jesús María Sanromá earned the position of official pianist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, becoming the first person ever to receive such an honor?[1]
  • ... that José de Diego was in the audience on January 1916, when Jesús María Sanromá debuted at the Puerto Rican Ateneo and that he was so impressed with Sanromá that he persuaded the government to give Sanromá a grant of 600 dólares?[1]
  • ... that Clara Livingston, born in New York but who lived in Dorado, Puerto Rico since she was five years old, in 1927 became the first Puerto Rican female pilot and that at the time that she earned her flying license she was only the eleventh woman pilot to do so?[2]
  • ... that Isabel González a young, pregnant, single Puerto Rican mother challenged the Government of the United States when she was detained in Ellis Island in the groundbreaking case "GONZALES v. WILLIAMS" a case which helped pave the way for Puerto Ricans to be recognized as American citizens?
  • ... that Dr. Agustín Stahl, Puerto Rico's first renowned scientist, was the first person to adorn a Christmas tree in Puerto Rico? It happened in his backyard in Bayamón in 1866.[3]
  • ... that Jaime Fonalledas is the President and CEO of Empresas Fonalledas Inc., which owns Plaza Las Américas, the largest shopping mall in the Caribbean and one of the top retail and entertainment venues in the world?[4]
  • ... that Rafael Carrión, Sr. was a founding father of Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, the largest bank in Puerto Rico and the largest Hispanic bank in the United States?
  • ... that Obed Gómez, a Puerto Rican visual artist, is known as "The Puerto Rican Picasso"?

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Notes

  1. ^ In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Cofresí and the second or maternal family name is Ramírez de Arellano.