Learn About Puerto Rico

Puerto Ricans have been U.S. citizens since 1917, when the Jones-Shafroth Act was signed into law.

Island residents can vote in presidential primaries but not the general election, and are represented in Congress by a non-voting Resident Commissioner.

El Yunque National Forest is the only tropical rainforest in the U.S. National Forest System.

Located in the Sierra de Luquillo mountains of northeastern Puerto Rico, El Yunque receives up to 200 inches of rain per year and shelters hundreds of species found nowhere else on Earth.

Mosquito Bay on Vieques holds the Guinness World Record as the brightest bioluminescent bay on the planet.

The bay's glow comes from microscopic dinoflagellates (Pyrodinium bahamense) that emit light when disturbed. Vieques is a small island municipality off Puerto Rico's east coast.

Puerto Rico has fielded its own Olympic team since the 1948 London Games.

Despite being a U.S. territory, Puerto Rico competes as a separate nation under the Olympic Charter. The island has won gold in boxing, tennis, and track, and is particularly celebrated for its basketball program.

The legal drinking age in Puerto Rico is 18 — three years younger than on the U.S. mainland.

Puerto Rico is subject to U.S. federal law in many respects, but the minimum drinking age is set locally. The National Minimum Drinking Age Act (1984) conditions federal highway funds on states' adoption of age 21, but does not apply to territories the same way.

The coquí frog — named for the sound it makes — is Puerto Rico's most beloved national symbol.

These tiny tree frogs (genus Eleutherodactylus) are endemic to Puerto Rico. Their distinctive "ko-KEE" call is heard across the island from dusk to dawn. Coquís introduced to Hawaii became invasive; the species thrives only in Puerto Rico's ecosystem.

"Puerto Rico" means "rich port" in Spanish. The Taíno name for the island is Borikén — the origin of the word boricua.

Taíno people inhabited the island for centuries before Spanish colonization beginning in 1508. The word boricua remains a powerful cultural identity marker for Puerto Ricans both on the island and in the diaspora.

San Juan is the oldest continuously inhabited city under the U.S. flag, founded in 1521.

La Fortaleza, the official residence of Puerto Rico's Governor, is the oldest executive mansion in continuous use anywhere in the Americas. Both Old San Juan's blue cobblestones and its 16th-century fortifications (El Morro, San Cristóbal) are UNESCO-recognized.

Puerto Rico uses the U.S. dollar and 120V electricity — but has its own internet country code: .pr.

The island is fully integrated into the U.S. monetary system, and U.S. wireless carriers operate there. The .pr domain is administered locally, and Puerto Rico also has its own FIPS code, ZIP codes, and area codes (787 and 939).

The island is divided into 78 municipios (municipalities), each with its own elected mayor and assembly.

The municipios range from densely urban San Juan to rural mountain towns like Maricao. Each holds its own annual patron-saint festival (fiestas patronales), making Puerto Rico one of the most festival-rich places in the Caribbean.

Spanish and English are both official languages of Puerto Rico.

Spanish is by far the dominant everyday language; English proficiency varies widely. Both languages appear on government documents, signage, and in the courts. Puerto Rico is also a birthplace of Spanglish — a vibrant code-switching blend of the two.

The Arecibo Observatory, once the world's largest single-dish radio telescope, operated in Puerto Rico for 57 years before its collapse in 2020.

Built in 1963 in a natural karst sinkhole in the mountains of Arecibo, the observatory contributed to discoveries in pulsar astronomy, near-Earth asteroid tracking, and the SETI program. Its iconic dish appeared in films including GoldenEye and Contact.

Puerto Rico is widely regarded as the birthplace of reggaeton and is a global hub of Latin music.

The genre emerged in San Juan's housing projects in the early 1990s, blending Jamaican dancehall, hip-hop, and Caribbean rhythms. Artists including Daddy Yankee, Bad Bunny, and J Balvin have carried Puerto Rican sounds to the top of global charts. Older traditions — bomba and plena — also trace directly to the island.

The flamboyán tree (royal poinciana) blooms brilliant orange-red across Puerto Rico each summer, becoming an unofficial symbol of the island.

Though not native — it originated in Madagascar — the flamboyán has been embraced as a cultural icon. Its canopy lines roadsides and plazas, and its bloom season coincides with school letting out, making it a marker of summer in Puerto Rican memory.

As a U.S. territory, Puerto Rico has its own separate tax system — residents generally do not pay U.S. federal income tax on Puerto Rico-sourced income.

Puerto Rico's tax code is administered by Hacienda (the Treasury Department of Puerto Rico), not the IRS, for income earned on the island. This distinct status forms the legal basis for incentive programs like Act 60. Puerto Ricans do pay Social Security and Medicare taxes, and federal income tax applies to income from U.S. sources.

Bacardí rum has been produced in Puerto Rico since 1936, after the company relocated from Cuba following U.S. Prohibition.

The Bacardí distillery in Cataño, just across the bay from San Juan, is one of the world's largest rum distilleries. Puerto Rico produces roughly 70% of all rum sold in the United States, making rum a significant component of the island's economy and cultural identity.