Mona Passage in the context of "Spanish Virgin Islands"

The geography of Puerto Rico encompasses the geographical features of Puerto Rico, a Caribbean archipelagic and island nation centered around a collective identity based on its land, history, ethnicity, culture, and language, and organized as a self-governing unincorporated territory of the United States. Located between the Greater and Lesser Antilles in the northeastern Caribbean Sea, east of Hispaniola, west of Saint Thomas, north of Venezuela, and south of the Puerto Rico Trench, it consists of the eponymous main island of Puerto Rico and 142 smaller islands, islets, and cays, including San Juan Islet in the north, Vieques and Culebra islands in the Virgin Islands, and Palominos island and Icacos cay in La Cordillera nature reserve in the east, Caja de Muertos island in Caja de Muertos reserve, and Caracoles and Media Luna cays in La Parguera reserve in the south, and Mona, Monito, and Desecheo islands in the Mona Passage in the west.

Measuring 177 km (110 mi; 96 nmi) in length and 65 km (40 mi; 35 nmi) in width with a land area of 8,868 sq km (3,424 sq mi), the main island of Puerto Rico is the 4th largest in the Caribbean, 29th in the Americas, and 81st in the world, making it the 170th largest country or dependency by surface area. With 3.2 million residents, it is also the 4th largest in the Caribbean, 4th in the Americas, and 31st in the world, making it the 136th largest country or dependency by population.

Mona Island (Spanish: Isla de Mona) is the third-largest island of the Puerto Rican archipelago, after the main island of Puerto Rico and Vieques. It is the largest of three islands in the Mona Passage, the strait between Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, with the others being Monito Island and Desecheo Island. It measures about 7 miles by 4 miles (11 km by 7 km), and lies 41 mi (66 km) west of Puerto Rico, of which it is administratively a part. It is one of two islands that make up the Isla de Mona e Islote Monito barrio in the municipality of Mayagüez.

The island is managed under the Mona and Monito Islands Nature Reserve (Reserva Natural Islas de Mona y Monito). There are no permanent inhabitants; only rangers and biologists from the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources reside on the island, to manage visitors and take part in research projects. The island, along with Monito, form part of the Mona and Monito Islands National Natural Landmark which recognizes and preserves the islands' ecosystem as an outstanding example of diversity and natural history. The island is home to a number of endemic species such as the Mona ground iguana and it is an important seabird area.

The Virgin Islands (Spanish: Islas Vírgenes) is an archipelago between the North Atlantic Ocean and northeastern Caribbean Sea, located to the immediate east of the main island of Puerto Rico. It generally forms part of the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles in the West Indies of the Caribbean region.

Geologically separated from the Lesser Antilles by the Anegada Passage and from the Greater Antilles by the Mona passage, all the islands except for Saint Croix lie on the same carbonate platform and insular shelf, known as the Puerto Rico Bank, and same tectonic plate, known as the Puerto Rico–Virgin Islands microplate.

Monito Island (English: Little Mona, Spanish: Islote Monito) is an uninhabited island about 3.1 miles (5.0 km) northwest of the much larger Mona Island. Monito is the masculine diminutive form of Mona in Spanish, which also translates to little monkey in Spanish. It is one of three islands in the Mona Passage, and part of the Isla de Mona e Islote Monito barrio, a subdivision of the municipality of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.

It is 46.43 miles (74.72 km) from the Puerto Rican mainland, and 35.73 miles (57.50 km) from the island of Hispaniola (the coast of the Dominican Republic).

Desecheo (Spanish pronunciation: [deseˈtʃeo] DES-ə-CHAY-oh) is a small uninhabited island of the archipelago of Puerto Rico in the northeast of the Mona Passage; 13 mi (21 km) from the municipality of Rincón on the west coast (Punta Higüero) of the main island of Puerto Rico and 31 mi (50 km) northeast of Mona Island. It has a land area of 0.589 sq mi (377 acres; 153 ha; 1.53 km). Politically, the island is administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as the Desecheo National Wildlife Refuge, but part of the Sabanetas barrio of Mayagüez.

The Dominican Republic (Spanish: República Dominicana) is a country in the West Indies that occupies the eastern five-eighths of Hispaniola. It has an area of 48,670 km, including offshore islands. The land border shared with Haiti, which occupies the western three-eighths of the island, is 376 km long. The maximum length, east to west, is 390 km from Punta de Agua to Las Lajas, on the border with Haiti. The maximum width, north to south, is 265 km from Cape Isabela to Cape Beata. The capital, Santo Domingo, is located on the south coast.

The Dominican Republic's shores are washed by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and the Caribbean Sea to the south. The Mona Passage, a channel about 130 km wide, separates the country (and Hispaniola) from Puerto Rico.

Isla de Mona e Islote Monito is an island-barrio of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. The U.S. census of 2000 reports six housing units, but a population of zero. The barrio is made up of the islands of Mona and Monito. In 2010, there was a population of 5. This is the largest barrio of Mayagüez by area. The total land area of both islands in the barrio is about 56.93 km (Mona Island 56.783 km and nearby Monito Island 0.147 km), and it comprises 28.3 percent of the total land area of the municipality of Mayagüez. Desecheo Island, 49 km to the northeast, is part of Sabanetas barrio. The Mona Island Lighthouse is located in the barrio. Isla de Mona e Islote Monito is surrounded by the Mona Passage.

Mona and Monito Islands Nature Reserve (Spanish: Reserva Natural Islas Mona y Monito) consists of two islands, Mona and Monito, in the Mona Passage off western Puerto Rico in the Caribbean. Mona and Monito Islands Nature Reserve encompasses both land and marine area, and with an area of 38,893 acres it is the largest protected natural area in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (El Yunque National Forest, with 28,434 acres, is the largest in the main island of Puerto Rico). Much like the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific Ocean, the Mona and Monito Islands reserve represents a living laboratory for archaeological, biological, geological, oceanographical and wildlife management research.