Geographicals

Puerto Rico

An island in the Greater Antilles in the West Indies. Its capital is San Juan. It is a self-governing commonwealth in union with the United States. It was discovered by Columbus in 1493 but no colonization was attempted until 1508. It belonged to Spain until ceded to the United States in 1898. It became a commonwealth with autonomy in internal affairs in 1952. Columbus named the island San Juan for St. John's Day, the Monday he arrived, and the bay Puerto Rico, rich harbor. The island became Puerto Rico officially in 1932. (From Webster's New Geographical Dictionary, 1988, p987 & Room, Brewer's Dictionary of Names, 1992, p436)

National Library of MedicineMedical Subject Headings2026

Structured Summary

Abstract

An island in the Greater Antilles in the West Indies. Its capital is San Juan. It is a self-governing commonwealth in union with the United States. It was discovered by Columbus in 1493 but no colonization was attempted until 1508. It belonged to Spain until ceded to the United States in 1898. It became a commonwealth with autonomy in internal affairs in 1952. Columbus named the island San Juan for St. John's Day, the Monday he arrived, and the bay Puerto Rico, rich harbor. The island became Puerto Rico officially in 1932. (From Webster's New Geographical Dictionary, 1988, p987 & Room, Brewer's Dictionary of Names, 1992, p436)

MeSH Record

Classification

Broader headings

Related Concepts

Knowledge Graph

Loading graph…

Drag nodes to rearrange; hover to trace links; click a node to open its page.

MeSH Record

Aspects Covered

2 allowable subheadings

Indexed with the subheadings epidemiology, ethnology.

MeSH Record

Indexing Annotation

an island in the Greater Antilles in the West Indies; for Puerto Rico as a geog entity (as in epidemiol articles) & for Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico; for Puerto Ricans living in the United States as an ethnic group, coord PUERTO RICO /ethnol (NIM) + HISPANIC OR LATINO (IM)

MeSH Hierarchy

Tree Numbers

AMA Style

References

  1. National Library of Medicine. Puerto Rico. Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). 2026. Unique ID D011647. http://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/2026/D011647
  2. Puerto Rico. In: Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico
  3. Puerto Rico. In: Wikidata. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1183