Canas is a suburban and partly mountainous barrio located in the southern section of the municipality, west of the city of Ponce, at latitude 18.000283N, and longitude -66.658800 W.[4]
Name
Palma Cana (Sabal domingensis), palm after which Barrio Canas in Ponce is said to have been named.
According to Sunny A. Cabrera Salcedo in this Ph.D. dissertation, the name is of native American origin.[5] However, according to famed Puerto Rican historian Eduardo Neumann Gandia, the name Canas comes from Palma Cana, a palm useful for making sombreros, which was very abundant in the territory of Barrio Canas.[6] Ivette Perez Vega de Soler states that Canas, more than any other barrio in Ponce, had extensive areas of "palmares de yaguas".[7] The barrio formed from a community of tobacco plant growers dating back to the 1680s.[8]
Boundaries
It is bounded on the North by the hills north of Camino Bello Road, the hills north of PR-132, and Clavel Street, on the South by the Caribbean Sea, on the West by the El Peñón de Poncepromontory, the hills west of Correccional Las Cucharas Street, and the hills west of PR-549, and on the East by the hills west of PR-123, the future western branch of PR-9, Río Pastillo (roughly) and Río Matilde (roughly).[9][10]
Canas is divided into three subbarrios according to the U.S. Census Bureau: Baldorioty de Castro, Clausells, and Reparada.[12][13] The northern portion of Canas is home to the communities of Quebrada del Agua, Mansiones del Sur, Pastillo Alto, Villa Paraiso, Jardines del Caribe, Villa Delicias, Casa Mia, Villas del Caribe, Valle Alegre, and Quintas del Sur, while the southern section is host to La Cotorra,[14] Baramaya, Bello Horizonte, Las Margaritas, La Matilde, Punto Oro, Punta Diamante, El Tuque, Nueva Vida, Las Batatas, Brisas del Caribe, and Las Cucharas.[15]
Canas has 14.5 square miles (38 km2) of land area and 8.3 square miles (21 km2) of water area. In 2000, the population of Canas was 34,065 persons, and it had a density of 2,349 persons per square mile.[4] Canas, has the distinction of being the most populated barrio in the municipality of Ponce.[16] It also has the longest coastline of all barrios in Ponce.
In 2010, the population of Canas was 32,708 persons, and it had a density of 2,260.4 persons per square mile.[17]
The highest point in Barrio Canas stands at 918 feet and is located at the northernmost tip of the barrio. Another notable land feature is the Penon de Poncepromontory near the shoreline which stands at 331 feet.[19]
^Eduardo Questell Rodriguez ("Historia de la Comunidad Bélgica de Ponce: A partir de la Hacienda Muñiz y otros datos"; Ponce: PR: Mariana Editores; 2018; ISBN978-1-935892-04-5; p.13) points out that in 1828 Pedro Tomas de Cordoba ("Memorias geográficas, históricas, y estadísticas de la Isla de Puerto Rico" Instituto de Cultura Puertorriquña. San Juan, PR. 1968. Tomo II, citado por Socorro Girón en "Ponce, el teatro La Perla y La Campana de la Almudaina". Ponce: Gobierno Municipal de Ponce. 1992, pp 10-11) listed the then-21 barrios of Ponce and his 1828 21-barrio list already included Barrio Canas, so it appears that Barrio Canas was founded in 1828, and it is even possible it may have actually been founded much earlier than 1828.
^Barrios de Ponce.Archived 30 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine Antepasados Esclavos.(From: Pedro Tomás de Córdoba. Memorias geográficas, históricas, económicas y estadísticas de la Isla de Puerto Rico.) Retrieved 28 November 2014.
^Sunny A. Cabrera Salcedo. Hacia un Estudio Integral de la Toponimia del Municipio de Ponce, Puerto Rico. Ph.D. dissertation. May 1999. University of Massachusetts Amherst. Graduate School. Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Page 54.
^Ivette Perez Vega. Las Sociedades Mercantiles de Ponce (1816-1830). Academia Puertorriqueña de la Historia. San Juan, PR: Ediciones Puerto. 2015. pp. 60-61ISBN9781617900563
^Luis Caldera Ortiz. Nuevos Hallazgos Sobre el Origen de Ponce. Centro de Estudios e Investigaciones del Sur Oeste de Puerto Rico. 2019. p. 65. ISBN9781075058325
^Maptest.Archived February 18, 2010, at the Wayback Machine Government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. General Purpose Population Data, Census 2000. Unidad de Sistemas de Información Geográfica, Área de Tecnología de Información Gubernamental, Oficina de Gerencia y Presupuesto. Gobierno de Puerto Rico. Retrieved 10 November 2011.
.jpg)
.jpg)
