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Cuba »

The Republic of Cuba is an island country in the Caribbean. Havana is the capital of Cuba and its largest city, followed by Santiago de Cuba. To the north of Cuba lies the United States, only 150 km or 93 mi away. Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean, and with over 11 million people, it is also the second most populous, after Hispaniola, albeit with a much lower population density than most Caribbean nations.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus landed on what is now the island of Cuba and claimed it for the Kingdom of Spain. Cuba remained a colony of Spain until the Spanish–American War of 1898, after which it came briefly under the administration of the United States until gaining formal independence in 1902. Its fragile democracy became increasingly dominated by radical politics, and the country came under the dictatorship of former president Fulgencio Batista in 1952. Growing unrest and instability led to the ousting of Batista in January 1959 and by 1965 the country had developed into a single-party state under the revived Communist Party of Cuba, which holds power to date.

Cuba is a developing country, but it still has both a high life expectancy and literacy rate. The country operates a national health system and assumes fiscal and administrative responsibility for the health care of all its citizens; the infant death rate is lower than some developed countries, and the average life expectancy at birth is 78 years. Cuba has a 99.8% literacy rate with free education at every level. According to the United Nations, Cuba was the only nation in the world in 2006 that met the World Wide Fund for Nature’s definition of sustainable development, with an ecological footprint of less than 1.8 hectares per capita and a Human Development Index of over 0.8 for 2007.

*Source: Wikipedia

Capital: Havana

Population: 11.27 million (est. 2012)

Currency: Peso (there is a Cuban peso for locals only, and a ‘tourist’ peso)

Official Language: Spanish

Ethnicity/race: 65% – white; 24.8% – mulatto and mestizo; 10.1% – black (2002 census)

Religion: 85% – Roman catholic

3 Interesting Facts:

  1. Cuba has a tropical climate moderated by trade winds. The ‘dry season’ is between November to April and a ‘wet season’ between May and October. The average temperature is 21⁰C in January and 27⁰C in July.
  2. The Cubans refer to their island as “El Cocodrilo” – viewed from above Cuba is believed to resemble a crocodile.
  3. Cuba got its independence from Spain on December 10, 1898.

See more on Cuba from Cris2Travel:

 

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