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, comprising the island of Cuba, Isla de la Juventud, archipelagos, 4,195 islands and cays surrounding the main island. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Atlantic Ocean meet. Cuba is located east of the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexico), south of both the American state of Florida and the Bahamas, west of Hispaniola (Haiti/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 11 million inhabitants.

Cuba is one of a few extant socialist states, in which the role of the Communist Party is enshrined in the Constitution. Cuba has an authoritarian Government where political opposition is not permitted. Censorship is extensive and independent journalism is repressed; Reporters Without Borders has characterized Cuba as one of the worst countries for press freedom. Culturally, Cuba is considered part of Latin America. It is a multiethnic country whose people, culture and customs derive from diverse origins, including the Taíno Ciboney peoples, the long period of Spanish colonialism, the introduction of enslaved Africans and a close relationship with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. (Full article...)

Poster of Fidel Castro chopping sugar cane promoting the push for a mass sugar harvest.

The Revolutionary Offensive was a political campaign in Cuba starting in 1968 to nationalize all remaining private small businesses, which at the time totaled to be about 58,000 small enterprises. The campaign would spur industrialization in Cuba and focus the economy on sugar production, specifically to a deadline for an annual sugar harvest of 10 million tons by 1970. The economic focus on sugar production involved international volunteers and the mobilization of workers from all sectors of the Cuban economy. Economic mobilization also coincided with greater militarization of Cuban political structures and society in general.

By 1970 production in other sectors of the Cuban economy had fallen, and the predicted 10 million ton annual harvest fell short to only 8.5 million. The failure of the 1970 harvest caused officials to reassess the Cuban economy, sacrificing egalitarian measures and embracing Soviet influence. (Full article...)
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Illustration by Allan Brooks

The Zapata rail (Mustelirallus cerverai) is a medium-sized, dark-coloured rail. It has brown upperparts, greyish-blue underparts, a red-based yellow bill, white undertail coverts, and red eyes and legs. Its short wings render it almost flightless. It is endemic to the wetlands of the Zapata Peninsula in southern Cuba, where its only known nest was found in sawgrass tussocks. Little is known of its diet or reproductive behaviour, and its described calls may belong to a different species.

The species was discovered by Spanish zoologist Fermín Zanón Cervera in March 1927 in the Zapata Swamp near Santo Tomás, in the southern Matanzas Province of Cuba. The swamp holds one other bird found nowhere else, the Zapata wren, and also gives its name to the Zapata sparrow. Due to ongoing habitat loss in its limited range, its small population size, and predation by introduced mammals and catfish, the Zapata rail is evaluated as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Tourism and climate change may pose threats in the future. (Full article...)

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María Magdalena Campos-Pons (born July 22, 1959) is a Cuban-born artist based in Nashville, Tennessee. Campos-Pons works primarily in photography, performance, audiovisual media, and sculpture. She is considered a "key figure" among Cuban artists who found their voice in a post-revolutionary Cuba. Her art deals with themes of Cuban culture, gender and sexuality, multicultural identity (Cuban, Chinese, and Nigerian) as well as interracial family (Cuban-American), and religion/spirituality (in particular, Roman Catholicism and Santería). (Full article...)
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Indigenous Cubans Kuba
Indigenous Cubans Kuba
Credit: Unknown origin
Drawing of indigenous Taíno Cubans, 1558.

More did you know - show different entries

  • ...that Tomás Gutiérrez Alea was a Cuban filmmaker who wrote and directed more than 20 features, documentaries, and short films, and is known for his sharp insight into post-Revolutionary Cuba?
  • ...that Baconao, a large park region, located about 20 kilometers away from the city of Santiago de Cuba, was declared a World Heritage Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO?
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