Porto Rico

Porto Rico, or PUERTO RICO, a West India island (Spanish till 1898), lies 75 miles E. of Hayti or St Domingo. An oblong in shape, it has an area of 3530 sq. mi., about five-sixths the area of Jamaica, and measures 110 miles from east to west, and 40 from north to south. It is traversed from east to west by ranges of mountains, 1500 feet in average height, though Mount El Yunque rises to 3670 feet. From the base of the mountains rich alluvial tracts extend to the sea on all sides, and are watered by innumerable short streams. The higher parts are covered with forests. Rain falls in much greater abundance on the north than on the south of the island. The principal crops are sugar, coffee, and rice (the food of the people), though tobacco, maize, yams, bananas, plantains, and tropical fruits are also grown. Large herds of cattle and horses are fed on the lowland pastures. The imports consist of cotton and woollen goods, metals and hardware, and provisions, as rice, flour, ale, fruits, &c., and reach a value between two and three millions sterling; they are supplied principally by Great Britain, the United States, and Spain in nearly equal proportions. The exports are sugar, coffee, molasses, tobacco, and cattle, valued at two to two and a half millions, from three-quarters to one and a quarter million being for sugar and the same value for coffee. Spain and the United States are the chief customers; France and Great Britain come next. The population increases rapidly: in 1800 it was 155,400; in 1834, 358,800; in 1864, 615,844; in 1880, 754,313 (429,473 being white); and in 1898, 820,000. Chief towns are St John's (q.v.), the capital, and Ponce (38,000). Porto Rico was discovered by Columbus in 1493; Ponce de Leon founded a settlement in 1510. A rising against Spain in 1820-23 failed; Porto Rico was ceded to the United States as a result of the war (1898), and in 1900 an act of congress conferred civil government on the island.