San Juan, Puerto Rico

🇵🇷 San Juan is the capital city and most-populous municipality in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2010 census, it is the 46th largest city under the jurisdiction of the United States. San Juan was founded by Spanish colonists in 1521, who called it Ciudad de Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico's capital is the third oldest European-established capital city in the Americas, after Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, founded in 1496, and Panama City, in Panama, founded in 1521, and is the oldest European-established city under United States sovereignty. Several historical buildings are located in San Juan; among the most notable are the city's former defensive forts, Fort San Felipe del Morro and Fort San Cristóbal, and La Fortaleza, the oldest executive mansion in continuous use in the Americas.

Today, San Juan is Puerto Rico's most important seaport and is the island's financial, cultural, and tourism center. The population of the Metropolitan Statistical Area, including San Juan and the municipalities of Bayamón, Guaynabo, Cataño, Canóvanas, Caguas, Toa Alta, Toa Baja, Carolina and Trujillo Alto, is about 2.443 million inhabitants; thus, about 76% of the population of Puerto Rico now lives and works in this area. San Juan is also a principal city of the San Juan-Caguas-Fajardo Combined Statistical Area. The city has been the host of events within the sports community, including the 1979 Pan American Games; 1966 Central American and Caribbean Games; events of the 2006, 2009 and 2013 World Baseball Classics; the Caribbean Series and the Special Olympics and MLB San Juan Series in 2010.

Economy San Juan experienced significant economic growth following World War II. During this period the city underwent an industrial revolution, although as of 1984 it had never generated its own economic region. The city's economy relies mostly on companies dedicated to the manufacture of several products, including: chemical substances (bleach and house cleaning products); pharmaceuticals; rum and other beverages; fertilizers; electric tools; electronic devices; plastics, textiles, and food-based products.

Tourism is also a key industry, based on San Juan's proximity to Puerto Rico's main airport, the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport. The tourism focus of the city is located in the district of Condado Beach where there are luxurious hotels. Historical locations such as El Morro, Old San Juan and El Cuartel de Ballaja are promoted in tourism campaigns. The district of Hato Rey contains a corporate sector known as Milla de Oro (Golden Mile) which serves as the headquarters of local and international banks. San Juan's Hato Rey district is often referred to as the "Wall Street of the Caribbean", due to the influence of the area on Puerto Rico and the Caribbean's economy.

San Juan is also home to the Popular, Inc., parent company of Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, Popular Bank, E-Loan, and a Fortune 1000 company as of 2022. Other companies based in San Juan include ATH Network, First BanCorp, Liberty Puerto Rico, The Cervantes Group, and Triple-S Management Corporation. Seaborne Airlines is headquartered on the ninth floor of the World Plaza Building in Hato Rey.

Tourist Industry Technological advances after World War II in the development of the airliner, coupled with the island's climate and natural setting, have transformed San Juan into the springboard for tourism around the island, and has made the rest of the Caribbean known throughout the world during the last fifty years. Today the capital features hotels, museums, historical buildings, restaurants, parks, beaches and shopping centers.

Old San Juan is often emphasized in tourism campaigns, promoting the historic nature of its colonial buildings and narrow streets covered by cobblestones, a blue stone cast from furnace slag; they were brought over as ballast on Spanish ships. This includes the city's ancient defensive wall and forts, most notably El Morro and the Castillo San Cristóbal. On January 23, 1984, both of these edifices together with La Fortaleza and El Cañuelo (in nearby Toa Baja) were included as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, catalogued as being part of humanity's cultural patrimony as part of the National Park Service-administered San Juan National Historic Site. The restaurants and art galleries in the zone are visited by tourists and locals alike.

Outside of Old San Juan, the Puerto Rico Convention Center District (PRCC) includes the Puerto Rico Convention Center, which hosts a number of local and international events throughout the year such as the Puerto Rico Comic Con, the biggest of its kind in the Caribbean. The PRCC District also hosts a number of hotels, nightclubs, shops, cinemas, bars and restaurants, the Coca-Cola Music Hall, and the Toro Verde Eco Adventure Park.

Other notable tourist attractions in San Juan include the Condado and Ocean Park Beaches, El Escambrón and the Fortín de San Gerónimo, La Placita de Santurce, the Luis A. Ferré Performing Arts Center, the Luis Muñoz Marín and Luis Muñoz Rivera Parks, Plaza Las Américas and The Mall of San Juan, the Museum of Art of Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rico Museum of Contemporary Art, the San Juan Wildlife Museum, and the University of Puerto Rico Botanical Garden, among others. The University of Puerto Rico's main campus in Río Piedras is also of interest with its historic quadrangle and clock tower, its number of theaters and venues which host events such as the Casals Festivals, and a museum. San Juan is also used by tourists as a base to explore other attractions within and outside the San Juan metropolitan area, such as the Bacardi Cathedral of Rum and boardwalk in Cataño, the "Pork Highway" of Guavate in Cayey, the bioluminiscent bay in Fajardo, the beaches and street food of Piñones in Loíza, and El Yunque National Forest recreational areas in the municipalities of Luquillo and Río Grande.

Colleges and universities San Juan is home to many of Puerto Rico's institutions of higher learning. The University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras Campus is located in San Juan, along with the University of Puerto Rico's Medical Sciences Campus. Other colleges located in San Juan are the University of the Sacred Heart, the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico, the Ana G. Méndez University System's Metropolitan University, the Metropolitan Campus of the Inter American University of Puerto Rico, the Carlos Albizu University, the Evangelic Seminary of Puerto Rico and the Center for Advanced Studies on Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. There are smaller colleges located in the city, including the ICPR Junior College, the Instituto de Banca y Comercio and the International Junior College, located in Santurce.

There are also several technical schools based in San Juan, including the Technological College of San Juan, the Liceo de Artes y Ciencias, Ramirez College of Business and Technology, and the Puerto Rico Technical Junior College. The Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music and the School of Fine Arts in Old San Juan specialize in education that promotes the fine arts and music.