🇵🇷 Puerto Rico
San Juan
San Juan is the capital of Puerto Rico — a Caribbean island territory of the United States with 3.2 million people, and a city of 340,000 that is the oldest city in US jurisdiction (the Spanish founded the settlement of San Juan in 1521 on a rocky islet at the entrance to San Juan Bay — making it the second oldest European city in the Americas after Santo Domingo). San Juan's historic district, Old San Juan (La Ciudad Amurallada — the Walled City), is one of the finest examples of Spanish colonial urban architecture in the Americas: 500-year-old blue cobblestone streets (the cobblestones are made from iron slag ballast from Spanish galleons — the "adoquines" glow faintly blue in the rain), brilliantly coloured colonial townhouses in ochre, turquoise, yellow and terracotta, the two massive Spanish military fortifications that defended the island for 400 years (Castillo San Felipe del Morro — the massive hexagonal fortress on the headland, 1539-1786, one of the largest fortifications in the Americas; and Castillo San Cristóbal, 1634-1783, the largest Spanish fort in the New World at 11 hectares), and the Cathedral of San Juan Bautista (1521, one of the oldest churches in the Western Hemisphere, containing the tomb of the conquistador Juan Ponce de León). Puerto Rico is simultaneously part of the United States (US citizens, US dollar, US postal service) and deeply Caribbean and Latin American — the Afro-Caribbean plena and bomba music, the piña colada (invented in San Juan at the Caribe Hilton in 1954), the lechón (whole-roast pig over an open fire, the cornerstone of Puerto Rican celebration cooking), and the bacalaítos (fried salted cod fritters) define an island culture that is unlike anywhere else.