Islam in Puerto Rico: history and Muslim population data

History of Islam in Puerto Rico

The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is unincorporated, organized territory of the United States with area 13,790 sq km. Its map is presented in Figure 5.5.7. It has been under US control since 1898, when it was captured from Spain. It is an archipelago that includes the main island of Puerto Rico and over a hundred smaller islands mostly to the east of the main island and almost all are uninhabited, the largest of which are Vieques (348 sq km), Culebra (30 sq km), and Mona (57 sq km but uninhabited).

The first Muslims arrived around the mid-twentieth century from Palestine as a result of the declaration of Israel. Thus, estimates of the Muslim population increased from none in 1940, to 2,000 or 0.07% in 1970, to 3,000 or 0.09% in 1980, to 4,500 or 0.13% in 1990, to 5,000 or 0.13% in 2010.

Thus, assuming that the percentage of Muslims will continue to increase by 0.01 of a percentage point per decade; then the Muslim population is expected to decrease to 5,000 in 2050 and 3,000 in 2100, comprising 0.2% of the total population.

Historical Muslim population dataset for Puerto Rico

The figures below are from the CoMPS historical dataset. Population values are expressed in thousands; 2100 is a modelled projection, not a present-day count.

For the full time series and visualisation, use the interactive map above.