Easternmost of the Greater Antilles, it is bounded by the Atlantic (N), the Caribbean (S), the Dominican Republic (W), and the Virgin Islands(E). Puerto Rico is crossed by mountain ranges, notably the Cordillera Central, which rises to 4,389 ft (1,388 m). The climate is tropical. Sugarcane was long the chief agricultural product, but livestock and dairy production have surpassed it in importance. Coffee, tobacco, and fruits are other leading crops. The population, however, depends chiefly on industrial employment; the manufacture of machinery, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, textiles, electronic equipment, and plastics, as well as oil refining, are important. Tourism is also a major source of revenue.

Puerto Ricans share the rights and duties of U.S. citizens, except that they do not pay federal income taxes and do not vote in national elections (unless living on the mainland). The Puerto Ricans are primarily descendants from Spanish colonists, with admixed aboriginal native (taino), and African strains. Spanish and English are the official languages, but Spanish is predominant.

In the 19th century (400 years later), popular unrest led finally to the Spanish Crown granting some autonomy to the island in the late 1800's. After the SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR of 1898, Puerto Rico was ceded to the U.S., which quickly set up an administration of the territory under an American governor. Meanwhile an independence movement grew. In 1917 Puerto Ricans were granted U.S. citizenship. As U.S. holdings in the one-crop sugar economy increased, large corporations encroached on land that had been used to grow subsistence food, and the subsequent economic distress was not relieved until World War II.

After the war, Operation Bootstrap, encouraging American industrial investment with tax incentives, began to change the nature of the Puertorican economy. The first Puertorican governor (Luis Muñoz Marin) is elected in 1948 by popular vote. In 1952 the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico was formed with it's own constitution (modeled after the US Constitution) is proclaimed. Nationalist agitation continued, however. By the 1960s statehood advocates and supporters of continued commonwealth status held power alternately, while advocates of independence eschewed the electoral process. In 1992 Dr. Pedro Rosello, a statehood advocate, was elected governor, but voters chose continued commonwealth status by a narrow margin in a 1993 referendum.

The most recent governor (2004 - 2008) was the Hon. Anibal Acevedo Vilá of the Popular Democratic Party (PDP - Partido Popular Democratico), which now is in favor of a more loosely bound Association with the US, in efffect a pseudo-country, instead of the tightly coupled Status Quo. Mr. Vila was governor for only a four year term. He was recently replaced as governor by popular election by the Hon. Luis Furtuño a member and now president of the New Progressive Party (PNP - Partido Nuevo Progresista, which favors statehood for Puerto Rico).