Land Use

Despite Puerto Rico being the most densely populated island in the Caribbean and with such a large portion of its rural population owning farms, land in Puerto Rico was fairly underutilized when the United States took over the island in 1898. There was intense cultivation in the western highlands and coastal districts, but even in regions where sugarcane farming was dominant, the percentage of land under cultivation was well under 25 percent of total acreage and in some areas less than 10 percent, according to maps created for the 1899 census. (See Maps 9.1–9.3.)