When answering a question like this one, it should be noted that the Spanish and Portuguese were the first European countries to enter the Age of Exploration. With this in mind, it can be said that the Spanish Empire had already largely been established when many of its rivals were still trying to create footholds in the New World.
At the same time, you should also remember that Spain constructed its New World Empire out of the fully functioning and centralized empires that had already been present in the region to begin with (those being the Aztecs and the Incas). Of course, this raises a specific question: how were the Spanish able to so rapidly conquer these large and powerful empires and then hold those conquests afterwards?
In addition to their advantage in technology, it should be remembered that the Spanish were opposing large empires that had themselves been created...
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through conquest. In this respect, they were able to draw on the support of those groups that had previously been subjugated and suppressed by those empires. In short, they had the support of allies. Furthermore, you should also remember the role that disease would play in this history, ravaging the native populations.
Thus, when speaking about the Spanish Empire in the Americas, you should remember that Spain's conquests involved the most densely populated and politically centralized cultures of the New World at the time, with the empire essentially being built on top of those empires that had previously existed.
Consider the example of Mexico City, constructed in the same location as the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan. In this, it should also be noted that where the natives were concerned, the Spanish tended to seek policies more geared toward assimilation. Of course, be aware: this should NOT be read as a defense of Spanish policy: the Spanish were brutal toward these native populations, subjugating them for the purpose of extracting labor.
Nevertheless, the result of these contexts was to leave Spain with the most heavily populated and urbanized holdings of any of American colonizers. To quote historian J. H. Elliott,
Mexico City at the time of its insurrection in 1692 had a population of at least 100,000. Boston, by contrast, had some 6,000 inhabitants, New York City 4,500, and Philadelphia, founded in 1681, a mere 2,200. (Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America:1492–1830, p. 181)
The degree of urbanization and population in the Spanish World was thus on an entirely different scale than what you would see among its competitors, a factor you should be aware of, especially when comparing these different colonial powers.