Portal:Cuba


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Location of Cuba in the Caribbean
Republic of Cuba
República de Cuba (Spanish)

Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country in the Caribbean. It comprises the eponymous main island as well as 4,195 islands, islets, and cays. Situated at the convergence of the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Atlantic Ocean, Cuba is located east of the Yucatán Peninsula, south of both Florida and the Bahamas, west of Hispaniola, and north of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Havana is the largest city and capital. Cuba is the third-most populous country in the Caribbean after Haiti and Dominican Republic, with about 10 million inhabitants. It is the largest country in the Caribbean by area. Culturally, Cuba is considered part of Latin America.

During the 1970s through the late 1980s, Cuba intervened in numerous conflicts in support of anti-colonial and Marxist governments or movements across Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. According to a CIA declassified report, Cuba had received $33 billion in Soviet aid by 1984. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Cuba faced a severe economic downturn in the 1990s, known as the Special Period. In 2008, Castro retired after 49 years; Raúl Castro was elected his successor. Raúl retired as president of the Council of State in 2018, and Miguel Díaz-Canel was elected president by the National Assembly following parliamentary elections. Raúl retired as First Secretary of the Communist Party in 2021, and Díaz-Canel was elected thereafter, becoming Cuba's first leader to have been born after the Cuban Revolution.

Cuba has one of the world's few command economies, and its economy is dominated by tourism and the exports of skilled labor, sugar, tobacco, and coffee. Cuba has historically—before and during communist rule—performed better than other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean in literacy. After the 1959 revolution, Cuba performed better than other Latin American countries in infant and maternal mortality, and life expectancy. According to a 2012 study, Cuba is the only country in the world to meet the conditions of sustainable development put forth by the WWF. Cuba has a universal health care system that provides free medical treatment to all Cuban citizens, although challenges include low salaries for doctors, poor facilities, poor provision of equipment, and the frequent absence of essential drugs. (Full article...)

Bay of Pigs from Cueva de los Peces

The Bay of Pigs (Spanish: Bahía de Cochinos) is an inlet of the Gulf of Cazones, located on the southern coast of Cuba. By 1910 it was included in Santa Clara Province, and then to Las Villas Province by 1961, but in 1976, it was reassigned to Matanzas Province, when the original six provinces of Cuba were re-organized into 14 new Provinces of Cuba.

The area is a site known for its diving, with an abundance of marine fauna, e.g. 30 species of sponges belonging to 19 families and 21 genera, to be found in the bay. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various Cuba-related articles on Wikipedia.

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The Kingdom of This World (Spanish: El reino de este mundo) is a novel by Cuban author Alejo Carpentier, published in 1949 in his native Spanish and first translated into English in 1957. A work of historical fiction, it tells the story of Haiti before, during, and after the Haitian Revolution led by Toussaint Louverture, as seen by its central character, Ti Noel, who serves as the novel's connecting thread. Carpentier's work has been influenced by his multi-cultural experience and his passion for the arts, as well as by authors such as Miguel de Cervantes. The novel stems from the author's desire to retrace the roots and history of the New World, and is embedded with what Carpentier calls "lo real maravilloso" or "the marvelous real"—a concept he introduced to the world of literature (not to be confused with magical realism).

Throughout the novel, varying perceptions of reality that arise due to cultural differences between its characters are emphasized and contrasted. Carpentier explores hybridization, nature, voodoo, ethnicity, history and destiny, confusion, violence, and sexuality in a style that blends history with fiction and uses repetition to emphasize the cyclical nature of events. The novel was largely well-received with much attention paid to Carpentier's inclusion of magic realism and The Kingdom of This World has been described as an important work in the development of this genre in Caribbean and Latin American literature. However, some technical aspects of his style have been ignored by the academic community, and the novel's narrative organization has been criticized. (Full article...)

Selected biography - show another

Silvio in Argentina in 2004

Silvio Rodríguez Domínguez (born 29 November 1946) is a Cuban musician, and leader of the Nueva Trova movement.

He is widely considered as Cuba's best folk singer and arguably one of Latin America's greatest singer-songwriters. Known for his intellectual, highly eloquent and symbolic lyrics, his songs are iconic elements of Latin American left-leaning popular culture. Many of his songs have become classics in Latin American music, such as "Ojalá", "Playa Girón", "Unicornio", "Sueño con Serpientes", "Vamos a andar," and "La maza". Among his other well-known songs are political anthems like "Fusil contra fusil" and "Canción del Elegido", and poetic melodies like "A donde van" and "Noche sin fin y mar". He has released over 20 albums. (Full article...)

Selected picture

The Castillo del Morro San Pedro de la Roca, near Santiago de Cuba.
The Castillo del Morro San Pedro de la Roca, near Santiago de Cuba.
Credit: DirkvdM
The Castillo de San Pedro de la Roca, a coastal fortress near Santiago de Cuba completed in 1700.

More did you know - show different entries

  • ...that the Carretera Central is an east-west highway spanning the length of the island of Cuba?
  • ...that Havana Club is sold outside Cuba in conjunction with the Pernod Ricard drinks company, but is not sold in the United States due to the ongoing embargo on Cuban products?
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U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, 1824.

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