A BRIEF INTRODUCTION OF PONCE, PUERTO RICO

Ponce, a City and Municipality, was founded in 1692. It is the second municipality of Puerto Rico with the largest territorial extension, and the second largest population outside of the San Juan Metropolitan Area.

The city of Ponce was named after Juan Ponce de León y Loaiza, grandson of the Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León. The city of Ponce borders to the West with the municipality of Peñuelas, to the North with the municipalities of Adjuntas, Utuado and Jayuya. To the East, Ponce borders with the municipality of Juana Díaz and with the Caribbean Sea to the South. The city is made up of 31 neighborhoods. Of these neighborhoods, 12 are located within the urban area and 19 are in the rural area.

Originally, what is now known as Ponce belonged to the Guaynía region of the Taíno indigenous people, which stretched along the southern coast of Puerto Rico.  European colonizers started to move to Ponce from the southwestern town of San German.

Among these earliest European settlers were Juan Ponce de León y Loaiza.

The size of Ponce grew substantially within a few years and on 29 July 1848, Ponce was declared a Village by Queen Isabel II, and later, on August 13, 1877, King Alfonso XII of Spain declared the village a city.