Las Salinas de Cabo Rojo / Cabo Rojo Salt Flats

Salt extraction at Cabo Rojo began, according to historians, with the Aruaco Indians around the year 700 A.D. In 1508 Juan Ponce de León visited the island and ordered commercial salt extraction using the Taíno Indians as slaves, making the salt flats the first industry in Puerto Rico and one of the oldest in the Americas. The area includes 1,249 acres of lagoons, salt flats, dry forest, and mangroves, forming a unique and irreplaceable ecosystem valuable to wildlife at both national and regional levels. Salt is produced when high tides bring seawater into the hypersaline lagoons, the water is left to evaporate and increase in salinity, then pumped into crystallizers where sun and wind complete the evaporation, causing salt crystals to form in layers over about three months before excess water is removed and the solid salt is cut and scraped from the bottom.

Puerto Rico · United States