Carolina is a city and municipality located on the northeast coast of Puerto Rico. It lies immediately east of the capital San Juan and Trujillo Alto; north of Gurabo and Juncos; and west of Canóvanas and Loíza. Carolina is spread over 12 barrios plus Carolina Pueblo (the downtown area and administrative center). It is part of the San Juan-Caguas-Guaynabo Metropolitan Statistical Area, and home to Puerto Rico's main airport, the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport.
The town was founded by Spanish colonists in 1816 as Trujillo Bajo ("lower Trujillo"), along with its counterpart Trujillo Alto after Trujillo, Spain. In 1857 it was renamed to San Fernando de la Carolina, later shortened to Carolina, after Charles II of Spain.
The city is known as "Tierra de Gigantes" (Land of Giants), not only for well-known Carolina resident Don Felipe Birriel González (who was 7'11"), but also in honor of other people from Carolina, including poet Julia de Burgos and most notably the first Latin American player named to baseball's Hall of Fame, Roberto Clemente. Carolina was also home to Jesús T. Piñero, the first Puerto Rican to be appointed as governor by the United States government. The city is also known as "El Pueblo de los Tumba Brazos" (The Arm Hackers' Town). During the late 1800s, the town's major export was sugarcane.
Puerto Rico was ceded by Spain in the aftermath of the Spanish–American War under the terms of the Treaty of Paris of 1898 and became a territory of the United States. In 1899, the United States Department of War conducted a census of Puerto Rico finding that the population of Carolina was 11,965. Hurricane Maria on September 20, 2017 caused flooding in Carolina. The Río Grande de Loíza floods left around 500 homes uninhabitable. The Roberto Clemente stadium lost its roof and many other structures, bridges and roads were damaged to a toll of $87 million. Given the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport is in Carolina, the destruction in Carolina created a challenge and the airport remained closed for three days. Two weeks after, the airport was attempting to operate a more regular schedule, but electricity was inconsistent and on October 10, nearly a month after the hurricane the airport was running on generators again.
