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Portal:Cuba

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Welcome to the Cuba Portal

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 4,195 islands, islets and cays, including the eponymous main island and Isla de la Juventud. Situated at the confluence of the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Atlantic Ocean, Cuba is located east of the Yucatán Peninsula, south of both Florida (the United States) and the Bahamas, west of Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), 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 the 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 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.

Cuba has one of the world's few planned 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 the region on several socioeconomic indicators, such as literacy, infant 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...)

Various illustrations of the Ten Years' War

The Ten Years' War (Spanish: Guerra de los Diez Años; 1868–1878), also known as the Great War (Guerra Grande) and the War of '68, was part of Cuba's fight for independence from Spain. The uprising was led by Cuban-born planters and other wealthy natives. On 10 October 1868, sugar mill owner Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and his followers proclaimed independence, beginning the conflict. This was the first of three liberation wars that Cuba fought against Spain, the other two being the Little War (1879–1880) and the Cuban War of Independence (1895–1898). The final three months of the last conflict escalated with United States involvement, leading to the Spanish–American War. (Full article...)

General images

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

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Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.

The Cuban rock iguana (Cyclura nubila), also known as the Cuban ground iguana or Cuban iguana, is a species of lizard of the iguana family. It is the second largest of the West Indian rock iguanas (genus Cyclura), one of the most endangered groups of lizards. A herbivorous species with a thick tail and spiked jowls, it is one of the largest lizards in the Caribbean.

The Cuban iguana is distributed throughout the mainland of Cuba and its surrounding islets with a feral population thriving on Isla Magueyes, Puerto Rico. A subspecies is found on the Cayman Islands of Little Cayman and Cayman Brac. Females guard their nest sites and one population nests in sites excavated by Cuban crocodiles. As a defence measure, the Cuban iguana often makes its home within or near prickly-pear cacti. (Full article...)

Selected biography - show another

Oviedo playing the tres, c. 1930.

Isaac Oviedo (July 6, 1902 – June 16, 1992) was a Cuban tres player, singer and songwriter. He was the founder and leader of the Septeto Matancero for over 50 years, and the author of many famous sones such as "Engancha carretero". Throughout his long career Oviedo only recorded a handful of sessions, mostly for American record labels. He has been called "one of the greatest Cuban tres players" by other musicians such as Efraín Ríos and Pancho Amat. According to the latter, Oviedo was the pioneering and most influential tresero of the septeto format (the major type of son ensemble of the 1920s and '30s). His technical innovations include the alzapúa thumb stroke and the use of the pinky finger.

His son Ernesto played in his band since the 1940s and became a successful bolero singer, while his other son Gilberto, known as Papi Oviedo, has also had a long career as a tresero, playing with Conjunto Chappottín, Estrellas de Chocolate and Orquesta Revé. (Full article...)

Selected picture

A state hotel in Cienfuegos, Cuba
A state hotel in Cienfuegos, Cuba
Credit: DirkvdM
A state hotel in Cienfuegos

More did you know - show different entries

  • ...that Carlos Manuel de Céspedes (pictured) is known as Padre de la Patria, (English:Father of the Homeland) in Cuba, having declared the nation's independence from Spain in 1868?
  • ...that the oldest known son is "Son de la Má Teodora", a traditional Cuban musical piece which has been traced back to the 1570s?
  • ...that Gaia is an arts centre in Havana, set up as a not-for-profit collaboration between Cuban and international artists?
More did you know... New articles...

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