Bucaná is one of the 31
barrios of the municipality of
Ponce, Puerto Rico. Together with
Canas,
Playa,
Vayas, and
Capitanejo, Bucaná is one of the municipality's five coastal barrios. The name of this barrio is of native Indian origin.[3] It was founded in 1831.[4]
History
Prior to being established as a barrio of Ponce, around 1597, the
bay of Ponce had a small place populated by Christian European settlers that was called Bucaná.[5] In 1800, Bucaná was known as Coto Bucaná,[6] a type of grant of land suitable for farming to a resident by the Spanish king in recognition for some service provided by the resident to the King.[7]
Location
Bucaná is an urban barrio located in the southern section of the municipality, within the Ponce city limits, and southeast of the traditional center of the city,
Plaza Las Delicias. The
toponymy, or origin of the name, alludes to the river that makes its way through it,
Río Bucaná.[8]
Boundaries
It is bounded on the North by Marginal Street/PR-578 (one block north of
PR-1), on the South by the
Caribbean Sea, on the West by
Rio Bucana,
PR-2 (roughly),
Rio Portugues, and the Portugues-Bucana Rivers Channel, and on the East by Bucara Street/Los Caobos Avenue,
PR-52 (roughly), and the Costa Caribe Country Club East Access Road.[9]
In terms of barrio-to-barrio boundaries, Bucaná is bounded in the North by
Sabanetas, in the South by the Caribbean Sea, in the West by
San Anton and
Playa, and in the East by
Vayas.[10]
U.S. Decennial Census 1899 (shown as 1900)[11] 1910-1930[12] 1930-1950[13] 1960[14] 1970[15] 1980-2000[16] 2010[17]
Bucaná has 1.34 square miles (3.5 km2) of land area and 0.81 square miles (2.1 km2) of water area. In 2000, the population of Bucaná was 3,963 persons, with a density of 2,958 persons per square mile.[18][19] In 2010, the population of Bucaná was 3,630 persons, with a density of 2,669.10 persons per square mile.[20] It has the shortest coastline of all five of Ponce's coastal barrios.
The communities of Los Caobos and Camino del Sur are found in Bucana.[21]
^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.
^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.