|
 The
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the smallest and most
easterly island of the greater Antilles, is the first
Overseas Commonwealth Territory (defined as a ‘free and
associated State’) of the USA. Spanish is the first
language, but citizenship is US and English is widely
spoken (as is ‘Spanglish’). In 1993, Spanish and
English were made official languages (thereby restoring a
1902 statute which had been amended in 1991, making
Spanish the sole official language).
Puerto
Rico lies about 1,600 kilometers southeast of Miami
between the island of Hispaniola and the Virgin Islands,
which give it shelter from the open Atlantic. Almost
rectangular in shape, slightly smaller than Jamaica, it
measures 153 kilometers in length (east to west), 58
kilometers in width and has a total land area of 8,768
square kilometers. Old volcanic mountains, long inactive,
occupy a large part of the interior of the island, with
the highest peak, Cerro de Punta, at 1,338 meters in the
Cordillera Central. North of the Cordillera is the karst
country where the limestone has been acted upon by water
to produce a series of small steep hills (mogotes) and
deep holes, both conical in shape. The mountains are
surrounded by a coastal plain with the Atlantic shore
beaches cooled all the year round by trade winds. |
