Although the many geological divisions of Puerto Rico might not be immediately apparent to the ordinary visitor, its people take great pride in the island's diversity. The most important geological and political divisions are detailed below.

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San Juan

The largest and best-preserved complex of Spanish colonial architecture in the Caribbean, Old San Juan (founded in 1521) is the oldest capital city under the U.S. flag. Once a linchpin of Spanish dominance in the Caribbean, it has three major fortresses, miles of solidly built stone ramparts, a charming collection of antique buildings, and a modern business center. The city's economy is the most stable and solid in all of Latin America.

San Juan is the site of the official home and office of the governor of Puerto .Rico (La Fortaleza), the 16th-century residence of Ponce de Leon's family, and several of the oldest places of Christian worship in the western hemisphere. Its bars, restaurants, shops, and nightclubs attract an animated group of fans. In recent years, the old city has become surrounded by acres of densely populated modern buildings, including an ultramodern airport, which makes San Juan one of the most dynamic cities in the West Indies.

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The Northwest: Arecibo, Rio Camuy, Rincon & More

A fertile area with many rivers bringing valuable water for irrigation from the high mountains of the Cordillera, the northwest also offers abundant opportunities for sightseeing. The region's principal districts include the following:

Aguadilla: Christopher Columbus landed near Aguadilla during his second voyage to the New World in 1493. Today the town has a busy airport, fine beaches, and a growing tourism-based infrastructure. It is also the center of Puerto Rico's tiny lace-making industry, a craft imported here many centuries ago by immigrants from Spain, Holland, and Belgium.

Arecibo: sLocated on the northern coastline a 2-hour drive west of San Juan, Arecibo was originally founded in 1556. Although little remains of its original architecture, the town is well known to physicists and astronomers around the world because of the radar/radio-telescope that fills a concave depression between six of the region's hills. Equal in size to 13 football fields and operated jointly by the National Science Foundation and Cornell University, it studies the shape and formation of the galaxies by accumulating and deciphering radio waves from space.

Rincon: Named after the 16th-century landowner Don Gonzalo Rincon, who donated its site to the poor of his district, the tiny town of Rincon is famous throughout Puerto Rico for its world-class surfing and beautiful beaches. The lighthouse that warns ships and boats away from dangerous offshore reefs is one of the most powerful on Puerto Rico.

Rio Camuy Cave Park: Located near Arecibo, this park's greatest attraction is underground, where a network of underground rivers and caves provides some of the most enjoyable spelunking in the world. At its heart lies one of the largest known underground rivers. Covering 300 acres aboveground, the park is sought out by cave explorers the world over.

Utuado: Small, sunny, and nestled amid the hills of the interior, Utuado is famous as the center of the (hillbilly) culture of Puerto Rico. Some of Puerto Rico's finest mountain musicians have come from Utuado and mention the town in many of their ballads. The surrounding landscape is sculpted with caves and lushly covered with a variety of tropical plants and trees.

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Dorado & The North Coast

Playa Dorado, directly east of San Juan at Dorado, is actually a term for a total of six white-sand beaches along the northern coast, reached by a series of winding roads. Dorado is the island's oldest resort town, the center of golf, casinos, and two major Hyatt resorts. At the Hyatt Resorts Puerto Rico at Dorado, you'll find 72 holes of golf, the greatest concentration in the Caribbean -- all designed by Robert Trent Jones.

The complex is quite family-friendly, with its Camp Hyatt, which offers programs for children ages 3 to 15. There is also a water playground at the Hyatt Regency Cerromar Beach Hotel, with a 1,776-foot-long fantasy pool -- the world's longest freshwater swimming pool.

Another resort of increasing importance is also found along the north coast: El Conquistador at Palomino Island, a private island paradise with sandy beaches and recreational facilities. This resort lies near Las Croabas, a fishing village on the northeasternmost tip of Puerto Rico's north coast.

Challenging both the Hyatt Resorts and El Conquistador is the Westin Rio Mar Beach Resort, Country Club & Ocean Villas, lying 19 miles to the east of the San Juan international airport.

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The Northeast: El Yunque, A Nature Reserve & Fajardo

The capital city of San Juan dominates Puerto Rico's northeast. Despite the region's congestion, there are still many remote areas, including some of the island's most important nature reserves. Among the region's most popular towns, parks, and attractions are the following:

El Yunque: In the Luquillo Mountains, 35 miles east of San Juan, El Yunque is a favorite escape from the capital. Teeming with plant and animal life, it is a sprawling tropical forest (actually a national forest) whose ecosystems are strictly protected. Some 100 billion gallons of rainwater fall here each year, allowing about 250 species of trees and flowers to flourish.

Fajarado: Small and sleepy, this town was originally established as a supply depot for the many pirates who plied the nearby waters. Today, a host of private yachts bob at anchor in its harbor, and the many offshore cays provide visitors with secluded beaches. From Fajardo, ferryboats make choppy but frequent runs to the offshore islands of Vieques and Culebra.

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Las Cabezas De San Juan Nature Reserve

About an hour's drive from San Juan, this is one of the island's newest ecological refuges. It was established in 1991 on 316 acres of forest, mangrove swamp, offshore cays, coral reefs, and freshwater lagoons -- a representative sampling of virtually every ecosystem on Puerto Rico. There is a visitor center, a 19th-century lighthouse (El Faro) that still works, and ample opportunity to forget the pressures of urban life.

The Southwest: Ponce, Mayaguez, San German & More: One of Puerto Rico's most beautiful regions, the southwest is rich in local lore, civic pride, and natural wonders.

Boqueron: Famous for the beauty of its beach and the abundant birds and wildlife in the nearby Boqueron Forest Reserve, this small and sleepy village is now ripe for large-scale tourism-related development. During the early 19th century, the island's most-feared pirate, Roberto Cofresi, terrorized the Puerto Rican coastline from a secret lair in a cave nearby.

Cabo Rojo: Established in 1772, Cabo Rojo reached the peak of its prosperity during the 19th century, when immigrants from around the Mediterranean, fleeing revolutions in their own countries, arrived to establish sugarcane plantations. Today, cattle graze peacefully on land originally devoted almost exclusively to sugarcane, while the area's many varieties of exotic birds draw bird-watchers from throughout North America. Even the offshore waters are fertile; it's estimated that nearly half of all the fish consumed on Puerto Rico are caught in waters near Cabo Rojo.

La Parguera: Named after a breed of snapper (pargos) that abounds in the waters nearby, La Parguera is a quiet coastal town best known for the phosphorescent waters of La Bahia Fosforescente (Phosphorescent Bay). Here, sheltered from the waves of the sea, billions of plankton (luminescent dinoflagellates) glow dimly when they are disturbed by movements of the water. The town comes alive on weekends, when crowds of young people from San Juan arrive to party the nights away. Filling modest rooming houses, they temporarily change the texture of the town as bands produce long and loud sessions of salsa music.

Mayaguez: The third-largest city on Puerto Rico, Mayaguez is named after the majagua, the Amerindian word for a tree that grows abundantly in the area. Because of an earthquake that destroyed almost everything in town in 1917, few old buildings remain. The town is known as the commercial and industrial capital of Puerto Rico's western sector. Its botanical garden is among the finest on the island.

Ponce: Puerto Rico's second-largest city, Ponce has always prided itself on its independence from the Spanish-derived laws and taxes that governed San Juan and the rest of the island. Long-ago home of some of the island's shrewdest traders, merchants, and smugglers, it is enjoying a renaissance as citizens and visitors rediscover its unique cultural and architectural charms. Located about 90 minutes by car from the capital on Puerto Rico's southern coast, Ponce contains a handful of superb museums, one of the most charming main squares in the Caribbean, an ancient cathedral, dozens of authentically restored colonial-era buildings, and a number of outlying mansions and villas that, at the time of their construction, were among the most opulent on the island.

San German: Located on the island's southwestern corner, small, sleepy, and historic San German was named after Ferdinand of Spain's second wife, Germaine de Foix, whom he married in 1503. San German's central church, Porta Coeli, was built in 1606. At one time, much of the populace was engaged in piracy, pillaging the ships that sailed off the nearby coastline. The central area of this village is still sought out for its many reminders of the island's Spanish heritage and colonial charm.

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The Southeast: Palmas del Mar & More

The southeastern quadrant has some of the most heavily developed, as well as some of the least developed, sections of the island.

Coamo: Although today Coamo is a bedroom community for San Juan, originally it was the site of two different Taino communities. Founded in 1579, it now has a main square draped with bougainvillea and one of the best-known Catholic churches on Puerto Rico. Even more famous, however, are the mineral springs whose therapeutic warm waters helped President Franklin D. Roosevelt during his recovery from polio. (Some historians claim that these springs inspired the legend of the Fountain of Youth, which in turn set Ponce de Leon off on his vain search of Florida.)

Humacao: Because of its easy access to San Juan, this small, verdant inland town has increasingly become one of the capital's residential suburbs.

Palmas Del Mar: This sprawling vacation and residential resort community is located near Humacao. A splendid golf course covers some of the grounds. Palmas del Mar is at the center of what has been called the ``New American Riviera'' -- 3 miles of white-sand beaches on the eastern coast of the island. Palmas del Mar is the largest resort in Puerto Rico, lying to the south of Humacao on 2,800 acres of a former coconut plantation -- now devoted to luxury living and the sporting life.

The Equestrian Center at Palmas is the finest riding headquarters in Puerto Rico, with trails cutting through an old plantation and jungle along the beach. The resort is ideal for families and has a supervised summer activities program for children ages 5 to 12.

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The Offshore Islands: Culebra, Vieques & More

Few norteamericanos realize that Puerto Rico has at least four well-known islands and a multitude of tiny cays lying offshore. The most famous of these include:

Cayo Santiago: Lying off the southeastern coast is the small island of Cayo Santiago. Home to a group of about two dozen scientists and a community of rhesus monkeys originally imported from India, the island is a medical experimentation center run by the U.S. Public Health Service. Monkeys are studied in a ``wild'' but controlled environment both for insights into the behavioral sciences and for possible cures for such maladies as diabetes and arthritis. Casual visitors are not permitted on Cayo Santiago, but they can cruise along the shore and watch the monkeys.

Culebra & Vieques: Located off the eastern coast, these two islands are among the most unsullied and untrammeled areas in the West Indies, even though Vieques is being belatedly discovered. Come here for sun, almost no scheduled activities, fresh seafood, clear waters, sandy beaches, and teeming coral reefs. Vieques is especially proud of its phosphorescent bay.

Mona: Remote, uninhabited, and teeming with bird life, this barren island off the western coast is ringed by soaring cliffs and finely textured white beaches. The island has almost no facilities, so visitors seldom stay for more than a day of swimming and picnicking. The currents that surround Mona on all sides are legendary for their dangerous eddies, undertows, and sharks.

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Visitor Information

For information before you leave home, contact one of the following Puerto Rico Tourism Company offices: 575 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10017 ([tel] 800/223-6530 or 212/586-6262); 3575 W. Cahuenga Blvd., Suite 405, Los Angeles, CA 90068 ([tel] 800/874-1230 or 213/874-5991); or 901 Ponce de Leon Blvd., Suite 604, Coral Gables, FL 33134 ([tel] 800/815-7391 or 305/445-9112).

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When To Go

Climate: Puerto Rico has one of the most unvarying climates in the world. Temperatures year-round range from 75 to 85F. The island is wettest and hottest in August, averaging 81F and 7 inches of rain. San Juan and the northern coast seem to be cooler and wetter than Ponce and the southern coast. The coldest weather is in the high altitudes of the Cordillera, the site of Puerto Rico's lowest recorded temperature -- 39F.

The Hurricane Season: The curse of Puerto Rican weather, the hurricane season lasts -- officially, at least -- from June 1 to November 30. But there's no cause for panic. In general, satellite forecasts give adequate warnings so that precautions can be taken.

The ``Season:'' In Puerto Rico, hotels charge their highest prices during the peak winter period from mid-December to mid-April, when visitors fleeing from cold north winds flock to the islands. Winter is the driest season along the coasts but can be wet in mountainous areas. If you plan to travel in the winter, make reservations 2 to 3 months in advance. At certain hotels it's almost impossible to book accommodations for Christmas and the month of February.

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Entry Requirements & Customs

U.S. citizens who fly from the mainland to Puerto Rico and return to the mainland don't need passports because Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States. Canadians, however, should carry a passport or some form of identification. Acceptable documents include an ongoing or a return ticket, plus a current voter registration card or a birth certificate. In addition, you will need some photo ID, which could be a driver's license or an expired passport. Driver's licenses alone are not acceptable as ID.

U.S. citizens do not need to clear Puerto Rican Customs upon arrival by plane or ship from the mainland. All non-U.S. citizens must clear Customs and are permitted to bring in items intended for their personal use, including tobacco, cameras, film, and a limited supply of liquor (usually 40 oz.).

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Money

The U.S. dollar is the coin of the realm. Keep in mind that once you leave Ponce or San Juan, you might have difficulty finding a place to exchange foreign money (unless you're staying at a large resort), so it's wise to handle your exchange needs before you head off into rural parts of Puerto Rico.

Plus, Cirrus, and other automated-teller machine (ATM) networks operate in Puerto Rico. Before departing, check to see if your PIN number must be reprogrammed for use at Caribbean ATMs to withdraw money on either your ATM or your credit card.

Always determine what the frequency limits for withdrawals and cash advances are on your bank or credit card. For locations of Cirrus abroad, call [tel] 800/424-7787 in the United States. For Plus usage abroad, dial [tel] 800/843-7587. ATMs give a better exchange rate than banks, but some ATMs exact a service charge on every transaction.

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