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Puerto RicoCOMMONWEALTH OF PUERTO RICO Status: Commonwealth Governor: Luis Fortuno Burcet (2008) Precent Capital and largest city (2002 est.): San Juan, 433,412 Other large cities: Bayamón, 224,670; Ponce, 186,112; Carolina, 187,468 Land area: 3,459 sq mi (8,959 sq km); total area: 3,515 sq mi (9,104 sq km) Population (2006 est.): 3,927,188 (growth rate: 0.4%); birth rate: 12.8/1000; infant mortality rate: 9.1/1000; life expectancy: 78.4; density per sq mi: 1,135. Monetary unit: U.S. dollar Languages: Spanish and English (both official) Ethnicity/race: white (mostly Spanish origin) 80.5%, black 8%, Amerindian 0.4%, Asian 0.2%, mixed and other 10.9% Religions: Roman Catholic 85%, Protestant and other 15% Literacy rate: 94.1% (2002) Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2007 est.): $77.41 billion; per capita $19,600 Real growth rate: 1.2%. Inflation: 6.5% (2003 est.). Unemployment: 12% (2002). Arable land: 4%. Agriculture: sugarcane, coffee, pineapples, plantains, bananas; livestock products, chickens. Labor force: 1.3 million (2000); agriculture 3%, industry 20%, services 77% (2000 est.). Industries: pharmaceuticals, electronics, apparel, food products, tourism. Natural resources: some copper and nickel; potential for onshore and offshore oil. Exports: $46.9 billion (f.o.b., 2001): chemicals, electronics, apparel, canned tuna, rum, beverage concentrates, medical equipment. Imports: $29.1 billion (c.i.f., 2001): chemicals, machinery and equipment, clothing, food, fish, petroleum products. Major trading partners: U.S., UK, Netherlands, Dominican Republic, Ireland, Japan (2004). Communications: Telephones: main lines in use: 1.038 million (2005); mobile cellular: 3.354 million (2005). Radio broadcast stations: AM 74, FM 53, shortwave 0 (2005). Radios: 2.7 million (1997). Television broadcast stations: 32 (2006). Televisions: 1.021 million (1997). Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 413 (2007). Internet users: 915,600 (2005). Transportation: Railways: total: 96 km (2006). Highways: total: 25,735 km paved: 24,353 km (includes 427 km of expressways) unpaved: 1,382 km (2005). Ports and harbors: Guanica, Guayanilla, Guayama, Playa de Ponce, San Juan. Airports: 29 (2007). International disputes: none. Major sources and definitions |
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The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is located in the Caribbean Sea, about 1,000 mi east-southeast of Miami, Fla. A possession of the United States, it consists of the island of Puerto Rico plus the adjacent islets of Vieques, Culebra, and Mona. Puerto Rico has a mountainous, tropical ecosystem with very little flat land and few mineral resources. Puerto Rico's governor is elected directly for a four-year term. A bicameral legislature consists of a 27-member Senate and a 51-member House of Representatives, all elected for four-year terms. From 1940 to 1968, Puerto Rican politics was dominated by a party advocating voluntary association with the U.S. Since then, the New Progressive Party, a party favoring U.S. statehood, has won five of the last eight gubernatorial elections. Puerto Ricans have twice voted to determine their political status. In 1967, the outcome was Commonwealth 60%; statehood 39%; independence 1%. In 1993, Commonwealth dropped to 48.6%; statehood rose to 46.3%; independence polled 4.4%; and 0.6% of the ballots were blank or spoiled. Under the Commonwealth formula, residents of Puerto Rico lack voting representation in Congress and do not participate in presidential elections. As U.S. citizens, Puerto Ricans are subject to military service and most federal laws. Residents of the Commonwealth pay no federal income tax on locally generated earnings, but Puerto Rican government income-tax rates are set at a level that closely parallels federal-plus-state levies on the mainland. When Christopher Columbus arrived there in 1493, the island was inhabited by the peaceful Arawak Indians, who were being challenged by the warlike Carib Indians. Puerto Rico remained economically undeveloped until 1830, when sugarcane, coffee, and tobacco plantations were gradually developed. After Puerto Ricans began to press for independence, Spain granted the island broad powers of self-government in 1897. But during the Spanish-American War of 1898 American troops invaded the island and Spain ceded it to the U.S. Since then, Puerto Rico has remained an unincorporated U.S. territory. Its people were granted American citizenship under the Jones Act in 1917; were permitted to elect their own governor, beginning in 1948; and now fully administer their internal affairs under a constitution approved by the U.S. Congress in 1952. In spite of broad popular support for the autonomy of the Commonwealth government and a rapidly modernizing industrial society, there were expressions of dissatisfaction. Puerto Rican extremists dramatized their desire for independence with an attempt to assassinate President Truman on Nov. 1, 1950, and on March 1, 1954, they wounded five congressmen in an attack on the U.S. Capitol. A self-help program of economic development and social welfare (called “Operation Bootstrap”) was forged in the 1940s by four-time governor Luis Muñoz Marín. In a little more than four decades, much of the island's crushing poverty was eliminated. This was done partly through the development of manufacturing and service industries, the latter related to an enormous growth in tourism. Also, many Puerto Ricans migrated to large cities on the mainland U.S. Puerto Rico is a major hub of Caribbean commerce, finance, tourism, and communications. San Juan is one of the world's busiest cruise-ship ports, and Puerto Rico's standard of living continues to be among the highest in the Western Hemisphere. Its future political status, however, remains unclear. On March 4, 1998, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that called for binding elections in Puerto Rico to decide the island's permanent political status. Since the 1940s, the U.S. Navy had used Vieques island as a bombing range. Protests against the exercises grew in recent years, and in a July 2001 referendum, residents of the island voted overwhelmingly to close the base. The navy withdrew from Vieques in May 2003. The Nov. 2, 2004, gubernatorial elections led to a two-month recount and a court challenge. On Jan. 2, 2005, Aníbal Acevedo Vilá of the Popular Democratic Party was declared governor. He received 48.4% of the vote, and his main challenger, Pedro Rossello of the New Progressive Party, 48.2%. Acevedo supports the existing U.S. territorial status of the island; Rossello supports statehood for Puerto Rico. In May 2006, a political standoff led to a two-week-long budget crisis resulting in the partial shutdown of the government, including all public schools. More than 100,000 workers went without pay. See also Encyclopedia: Puerto Rico. |
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About the United States of America
The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. It consists of 50 states and a federal district. The conterminous (excluding Alaska and Hawaii) United States stretches across central North America from the Atlantic Ocean on the east to the Pacific Ocean on the west, and from Canada on the north to Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico on the south. The state of Alaska is located in extreme NW North America between the Arctic and Pacific oceans and is bordered by Canada on the east. The state of Hawaii, an island chain, is situated in the E central Pacific Ocean c.2,100 mi (3,400 km) SW of San Francisco.
Washington, D.C , is the capital of the United States, and New York is its largest city.
People
More than 75% of the United States population are urban (and as of the late 1990s more than 50% are estimated to be suburban, a not strictly defined category that can be taken as a subset of urban), and the great majority of the inhabitants are of European descent.
 Resources
The mineral and agricultural resources of the United States are tremendous. Although the country was virtually self-sufficient in the past, increasing consumption, especially of energy, continues to make it dependent on certain imports. It is, nevertheless, the world's largest producer of both electrical and nuclear energy. It leads all nations in the production of liquid natural gas, aluminum, sulfur, phosphates, and salt. It is also a leading producer of copper, gold, coal, crude oil, nitrogen, iron ore, silver, uranium, lead, zinc, mica, molybdenum, and magnesium.
Major U.S. exports include motor vehicles, aircraft, food, iron and steel products, electric and electronic equipment, industrial and power-generating machinery, chemicals, and consumer goods. Leading imports include ores and metal scraps, petroleum and petroleum products, machinery, transportation equipment (especially automobiles), and paper and paper products. The major U.S. trading partners are Canada (in the world's largest bilateral trade relationship), Mexico, Japan, the United Kingdom, South Korea, and Germany. The volume of trade has been steadily increasing. The gross domestic product has continued to rise, and in 1998 it was easily the largest in the world at about $8.5 trillion. The development of the economy has been spurred by the growth of a complex network of communications not only by railroad, highways, inland waterways, and air but also by telephone, radio, television, computer (including the Internet), and fax machine.
Government
The government of the United States is that of a federal republic set up by the Constitution of the United States, adopted by the Constitutional Convention of 1787. There is a division of powers between the federal government and the state governments. The federal government consists of three branches: the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. The executive power is vested in the President and, in the event of the President's incapacity, the Vice President.
The executive conducts the administrative business of the nation with the aid of a cabinet composed of the Attorney General and the Secretaries of the Departments of State; Treasury; Defense; Interior; Agriculture; Commerce; Labor; Health and Human Services; Education; Housing and Urban Development; Transportation; Energy; and Veterans' Affairs.
*Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, Copyright (c) 2003. | |
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