The island also has around 320 bird species, including the emerald hummingbird (which lives nowhere else) and the Puerto Rican parrot.
One of the island’s most famous wildlife residents is the coquí (koh-KEE), a dime-size frog thats name comes from the sound it makes. Although the main island is just about 110 miles long and 35 miles wide, it holds a rainforest, a dry forest in Guánica, and hundreds of rivers and waterfalls. It’s one of the smallest national forests in the United States, but it’s also one of the most diverse, holding 183 animal species and 225 tree species (23 of which are found only in this area). national forest system, El Yunque (YUHN-kay) National Forest.
Puerto Rico is a tropical habitat with warm weather year-round and has the only tropical rainforest in the U.S. At 4,389 feet (four times the height of the Eiffel Tower), Cerro de Punta in the central town of Jayuya (HA-yuh-yah) is the highest point on the island. The main island has a mountain range, La Cordillera (koor-day-YEH-rah) Central, that runs east to west. The land was created by a now-extinct volcano that began erupting about 190 million years ago. Only three are inhabited: the main island of Puerto Rico and two islands named Vieques (pronounced vee-EH-kez) and Culebra (koo-LAY-bra). It’s often called an island, but Puerto Rico is actually an archipelago, which is a string of islands. citizens-including Puerto Ricans-don’t need passports to travel between Puerto Rico and the mainland United States. citizenship when President Woodrow Wilson signed the Jones-Shafroth Act.Īlthough Puerto Rico is not a state, residents use the U.S. territory and Puerto Ricans were given U.S. Puerto Rico came under United States rule after Spain lost the Spanish-American War in 1898. Around that time, slave traders forced African people to the island to build forts and work on farms. That’s because gold and treasures from the Americas went through Puerto Rico before sailing to Europe. 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. 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. They called the island Borikén, which some historians think meant “island of crabs” or perhaps “land of the brave.”
The Taíno people have lived on the island of Puerto Rico since around 1200, and they still live there today.
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