Puerto Rico (Napoleon's World)

Puerto Rico is a US state located in the Caribbean Sea, best known as the only state where a majority of inhabitants speak Spanish. Puerto Rico in 2010 had a population of about 4.5 million and is the most densely populated state in the Union. Until the early 1920s, even after statehood in 1858, Puerto Rico was effectively a self-governing colony of the US and attracted immigrants primarily from Spain. Like much of the Union, the Pacific War helped it forge a common identity as well as its own. Starting in the 1940s, a decline in the agricultural economy and the state's high birthrate among its Catholic population sent many Puerto Ricans to the mainland, and in the 1980s Puerto Rico began developing a more robust retirement and tourist industry.