Puerto Rico is the easternmost island of the Greater Antilles, the larger islands of the West Indies. Roughly rectangular in shape, Puerto Rico is about 110 mi (180 km) long and 40 mi (65 km) wide and has a population of about 3.3 million. Its capital San Juan is the third-oldest city of the Americas, founded in 1521. Discovered by Columbus on his second voyage in 1493, the island was a Spanish colony until it was captured by U.S. forces during the Spanish-American War of 1898. Puerto Ricans were granted U.S. citizenship in 1917. Since 1952 Puerto Rico has had the status of a self-governing state called the Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico (Associated Free State of Puerto Rico) in Spanish or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico in English. On 3 November 2020 Puerto Ricans voted narrowly to apply for admission as a member state of the United States. Puerto Rico's 16 surviving light stations include 11 historic lighthouses built by Spanish authorities before the U.S. annexation. Some of these Spanish lighthouses are revered national monuments but several others are abandoned and endangered. Fortunately, interest in lighthouse preservation has increased greatly in recent years and major restoration projects have been carried out at Arecibo, Cabo Rojo, and Punta de las Figuras. But much remains to be done and six Puerto Rican lighthouses remain on the Lighthouse Digest Doomsday List. Spanish and English are official languages in Puerto Rico, although Spanish is spoken universally. In Spanish the word for a lighthouse is faro, baliza is a beacon, isla is an island, cabo is a cape, punta is a promontory or point of land, péñon is a rock, arrecife is a reef, bahía is a bay, ría is an estuary or inlet, estrecho is a strait, río is a river, and puerto is a port or harbor. Aids to navigation in Puerto Rico are maintained by the Aids to Navigation Team of the U.S. Coast Guard Sector San Juan. ARLHS numbers are from the ARLHS World List of Lights. Admiralty numbers are from volume J of the Admiralty List of Lights & Fog Signals. USCG numbers are from Volume III of the U.S. Coast Guard Light List. U.S. NGA List numbers are from Publication 110. |
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Information available on lost lighthouses:
Notable faux lighthouses: |
Adjoining pages: East: U.S. Virgin Islands | West: Dominican Republic
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Posted December 1999. Checked and revised January 26, 2025. Lighthouses: 28. Site copyright 2025 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.