Mayagüez, Puerto Rico

Mayagüez is a large city in Western Puerto Rico. It was named after the Yagüez Indians who used to live in the area.

Mayagüez today is a heavily populated area with a large college crowd. Its universities have a reputation as having the Caribbean's best schools of engineering, and Mayagüez, because of the student crowd, has a reputation as a good party town. This could also be attributed to beautiful beaches north of Mayagüez, in the towns of Rincón and Aguadilla.

Mayagüez also has many touristic attractions and is close to the Porta Coeli Church a legendary church in nearby San German.

Because of its universities, Mayagüez attracts all kinds of different people among its international and domestic medicine students, along with the local families.

Mayagüez has many large malls, the Mayagüez Hilton hotel, and the biggest beer manufacturer in the Caribbean, the Cerveceria India.

The Hilton Hotels branch has been there for decades.

Mayagüez's BSN professional basketball team, the Tainos De Mayagüez, is named in honor of the city's Indian heritage, and its baseball team, the Indios De Mayagüez, honor both their Indian heritage and the beer company that has become famous all over Latin America. The Indios have won many Puerto Rican baseball championships and Serie Del Caribe championships. They are coached by Chicago White Sox first base coach Tom Gamboa.

Mayagüez's airport, Eugenio Maria De Hostos Airport, has long had airline services. In the 1970s it had domestic service from Prinair. After 1985, both American Airlines (with American Eagle) and Eastern Airlines (with Eastern Metro Express) started flights there, but Eastern went bankrupt in 1991 leaving American as the only operator. Nowadays, Pan Am is said to be planning to start Mayagüez's first jet service ever, with Boeing 727s flying between Mayagüez and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. In addition, Fina Air has announced it will begin flying from there to the Dominican Republic.

Famous Mayagüezans include singer and tv show host Rafael Jose, singer Chucho Avellanet, his nephew , former Menudo Roberto Avellanet and the late former Mayagüez mayor, Benjamin Cole, whom lasted 40 years in a row as mayor, which is a record.