Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Puerto Rico's Landscapes
THE LAND
Cartographers group Puerto Rico with the Caribbean's three largest islands - Cuba, Jamaica
and Hispaniola - in the so-called Greater Antilles, the most substantial of a series of islands
that dot the waters of the Caribbean and North Atlantic like the trail of a gracefully skipping
stone. But at 100 miles long and 35 miles wide, Puerto Rico is quite clearly the Greater An-
tilles' lesser sidekick, stuck off to the east of Hispaniola at about 18° north latitude, 66° west
longitude. With its four principal satellite islands - Mona and Desecheo to the west, Culebra
and Vieques to the east - and a host of cays hugging its shores, Puerto Rico claims approx-
imately 3500 sq miles of land, making the commonwealth slightly larger than the Mediter-
ranean island of Corsica and slightly smaller than the US state of Connecticut.
Geology
Like almost all the islands that sprang from the Caribbean Basin, Puerto Rico owes its ex-
istence to a series of volcanic events. These eruptions built up layers of lava and igneous
rock and created an island with four distinct geographical zones: the central mountains, karst
country, the coastal plain and the coastal dry forest. At the heart of the island, running east
to west, stands a spine of steep, wooded mountains called the Cordillera Central. The lower
slopes of the cordillera give way to foothills, comprising a region on the island's north coast
known as 'karst country.' In this part of the island, erosion has worn away the limestone,
leaving a karstic terrain of dramatic sinkholes, hillocks and caves.
The San Fermin earthquake that hit western Puerto Rico in October 1918 measured 7.6 on the Richter scale and triggered a 20ft
tsunami. The event caused more than $4 million worth of damage to the cities of Mayagüez and Aguadilla. It killed 116 people.
Forty-five non-navigable rivers and streams rush from the mountains and through the
foothills to carve the coastal valleys, particularly on the east and west ends of Puerto Rico,
where sugarcane, coconuts and a variety of fruits are cultivated. The island's longest river is
the Río Grande de Loíza, which flows north to the coast. Other substantial rivers include the
Río Grande de Añasco, the Río Grande de Arecibo and the Río de la Plata.
Little of the island's virgin forest remains, but second- and third-growth forests totaling
140 sq miles now comprise significant woodland reserves, mostly in the center of the island.
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