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Maunabo (Maunabo Municipio)

Maunabo is a town and municipality of Puerto Rico located in the Maunabo Valley on the southeastern coast, northeast of Patillas and south of Yabucoa. Maunabo is spread over eight barrios and Maunabo Pueblo (the downtown area and the administrative center of the city). It is part of the San Juan-Caguas-Guaynabo Metropolitan Statistical Area. The current mayor of the town is Jorge L. Márquez Pérez and the population in 2020 was 10,589.

Maunabo was founded in 1799. Maunabo derives its name from a Taino name Manatuabón for the Maunabo River.

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 Maunabo was 6,221.

Maunabo is known for its advances in media. Being almost "disconnected" from the rest of the island by its high mountains, the maunabeños created their own newspaper called La Esquina ("The Corner" in English) on August 30, 1975 by Ramón "Chito" Arroyo and José Orlando Rivera. It started as a community one-sheeter distributed free of charge only in Maunabo, but its popularity was so overwhelming that a year later it was transformed into a monthly tabloid. Today, the paper still is free of charge, home delivering 40,000 copies not only in Maunabo but also in the southeastern towns of Guayama, Arroyo, Patillas, Yabucoa and Humacao, and read by more than 190,000 people. Recently, the paper opened its new offices in Maunabo where they also work on La Esquina Online and other projects.

On September 20, 2017 Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico. The hurricane triggered numerous landslides in Maunabo with its 155 mph winds and rain. The electric company (Autoridad de Energía Eléctrica) stated restoring power to Maunabo could take up to 9 months. The mayor said all small businesses were affected and all minor fruits were lost.