North · inland · ~52 mi from San Juan

Living in Lares

Residents live in a mountain municipality made up of rural barrios and a central pueblo, within the Aguadilla-Isabela-San Sebastián metropolitan area and roughly 52 miles from San Juan.

How Lares sits among Puerto Rico’s 78 municipios — every figure against the island median, with its source. Visiting instead? Things to do in Lares.

Housing & money

Median rent in Lares runs 5% below the Puerto Rico median — 27th lowest of 78 municipios.

Median rent: $505/moPR median $534 · 27th lowest of 78
Median home value: $105,100PR median $115,700 · 21st lowest of 78
Median household income: $18,917/yrPR median $24,070 · 72nd highest of 78
Income per person: $11,029PR median $14,811
Homes owner-occupied: 63%PR median 71.1%
Homes vacant: 17%PR median 20.3%
Below the poverty line: 55%PR median 44.1%
Typical home built: 1984median year

For scale: the U.S. median rent is $1,413 and household income $80,734; Puerto Rico's are $578 and $26,297. Full cost-of-living comparison.

Work & getting around

The typical commute is 31 minutes, 3 minutes longer than the island median.

Typical commute: 31 minPR median 27 min · 61st shortest of 78
Work from home: 0.9%PR median 4.5%
Commute by transit: 0.3%PR median 0.3%
Unemployment: 13.0%PR median 10.5%
Households with broadband: 78%PR median 80.6% · 49th highest of 78
To San Juan: ~52 minext door: San Sebastián, Las Marías, Maricao

78% of households have a broadband subscription (49th of 78).

People

Population: 27,855159.2 km²
Residents per km²: 175PR median 295 · 60th densest of 78
Median age: 45.5PR median 44.9
Bachelor's degree or higher: 21%PR median 24.1% · 62nd highest of 78

Daily life

What is mapped in Lares today — counts, then per 10,000 residents so a small town and San Juan read on the same scale.

Schools: 176.1 per 10k · PR 6.3
Supermarkets: 20.7 per 10k · PR 0.7
Parks: 103.6 per 10k · PR 4.1
Restaurants: 72.5 per 10k · PR 2.1
Bus stops: 31.1 per 10k · PR 0
Beaches: 0inland

Counts from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL) — what volunteers have mapped, not an official register. Places our guide recommends in Lares.

Water, power & safety

Water. Lares is not on the current AAA rationing calendar. Reservoir levels & the rationing calendar
Power. LUMA reports outages by town; the live tracker shows Lares’s share of customers out right now. Outages by town
Safety. 10.4 reported violent crimes per 10,000 residents in 2025 — among the lowest of the 78 municipios (0 homicides that year). Every town, with context
Hurricanes. Every municipio prepares the same way; the Puerto Rico version of the checklist starts from a grid and water system that take longer to come back. Prepare

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-Year Estimates, 2020–2024 ACS 5-Year Estimates (5-year estimates — small municipios carry wide margins of error); OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), mapped as of 2026-08-13; Puerto Rico Police Bureau, SAEC Type I, 2025 full year; AAA — Plan de Interrupciones Programadas. Figures refresh when each source publishes; nothing here is modelled or estimated by us.